The number of abortions performed each month is about the same as before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the nationwide right to abortion more than a year and a half ago, a new report finds.
The latest edition of the #WeCount report conducted for the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit organization that promotes research on abortion and contraception, finds that between 81,150 and 88,620 abortions took place each month from July through September of last year, the most recent period for which survey results are available. Those numbers are just slightly lower than the monthly average of about 86,800 from April through June 2022, before Roe and just after was overturned.
But abortion data is seasonal, and the same survey found more abortions across the U.S. in the spring months of 2023 than it did in the period the year before leading up to the court’s decision.
The report also finds that prescriptions of abortion pills by telemedicine have become common, accounting for about one in every six abortions in the most recent three months of survey results.
The report estimates that if states had not been allowed to ban abortion, there would have been a total of 120,000 more during the survey period in the 14 states where bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy are now in place.