Importance Score: 77 / 100 🔴
Over One Million Abortions Performed in the US for Second Consecutive Year
For the second year running, data indicates that abortion providers in the United States have performed over one million abortion procedures in 2024. Significantly, approximately 155,000 individuals journeyed across state borders for abortion services. This figure represents roughly double the number of patients who traveled for abortions in 2020, prior to the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which subsequently enabled numerous state-level abortion restrictions to be enacted.
Consistent Abortion Numbers Mask Geographic Shifts Post-Roe
These statistics, recently released by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, show little change from 2023. In the previous year, the US also recorded over one million abortions, with 169,000 individuals traveling to obtain the procedure.
This apparent stability, however, conceals a substantial geographical disparity within the nation. A limited number of states have emerged as key destinations for individuals seeking abortion care following increased abortion restrictions in other regions.
States Serving as Abortion Access Hubs
In 2024, Illinois offered around 35,000 abortions to patients from outside the state, while North Carolina performed 16,700. Kansas and New Mexico, bordering Texas, a state with stringent anti-abortion legislation, provided 16,100 and 12,800 abortions respectively. The majority of these procedures were for individuals traveling from other states seeking abortion access.
Financial and Logistical Burdens of Abortion Travel Highlighted
Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a data scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, emphasized the considerable financial strain of travel. He noted the “incredibly costly” nature of travel “both for patients and for the wider support network of funds, practical support organizations and providers.” He stressed that the sheer scale of travel demonstrates the “great efforts” undertaken to ensure individuals can access necessary care, care that ideally “they should be able to access within their own community – without necessarily expending this enormous financial and logistical cost”.
Self-Managed Abortions and Data Limitations
The Guttmacher report primarily focuses on abortions conducted within the formal healthcare system. Consequently, it excludes self-managed abortions, which are believed to be increasing in the post-Roe landscape. (Medical professionals widely concur that individuals can safely terminate early pregnancies using abortion pills.) Furthermore, the report does not account for abortions obtained by residents of states with complete abortion prohibitions, despite instances of providers in states with abortion protections mailing medication abortion pills across state lines – a practice currently facing legal challenges.
Researchers Estimate Abortion Access Limitations
Researchers caution that these figures do not imply universal abortion access for those seeking it after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Caitlin Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College specializing in the economic impacts of abortion bans, estimates that approximately 20-25% of individuals seeking abortions are prevented from obtaining them due to existing restrictions.
Concerns Arise Over Demolition of CDC Abortion Surveillance Team
The Guttmacher report was released shortly after the previous presidential administration effectively dismantled the CDC team responsible for generating federal reports on abortion provision in the United States, known as “abortion surveillance” reports. These cuts have raised significant concerns among researchers.
Impact of CDC Data Cuts on Public Health Research
“If we can’t measure outcomes, we can’t do science,” stated Myers, emphasizing the crucial role of data collection. “My concern is that this work fundamentally relies on the ability to track public health outcomes, and if we aren’t tracking them, we don’t know what’s happening to people. We don’t know what’s happening in their lives. We don’t know the effect of policies and interventions.”
Alternative Data Sources for Abortion Incidence
Apart from the CDC and Guttmacher, #WeCount, a research initiative by the Society of Family Planning, is another group that consistently gathers nationwide data on abortion incidence. While these groups employ different data collection methodologies, the CDC’s annual report has historically been less comprehensive in scope compared to the post-Roe reports published by Guttmacher and #WeCount.
Data Gaps in Federal Abortion Reporting
Notably, several states, including California, a state supportive of abortion rights, do not furnish the federal government with data regarding abortions performed within their jurisdictions. Furthermore, the CDC report’s timeline lags behind the Guttmacher and #WeCount reports; the most recent CDC report, issued in November, presented data on abortions performed during 2022.
Value of Abortion Surveillance Data for Public Discourse
Despite limitations, the CDC report includes demographic information on individuals undergoing abortions and the gestational age of pregnancies. This data is valuable for fact-checking within ongoing debates surrounding abortion. For example, while anti-abortion advocates frequently condemn abortions performed later in pregnancy, the 2022 CDC report indicated that only around 1.1% of all abortions occur at or after 21 weeks of gestation.
Loss of Tracking Clinical Practice Changes
“Abortion surveillance can be utilized to assess alterations in clinical practice patterns over time,” explained a former CDC Division of Reproductive Health employee. “Without this report, we are losing the ability to track these changes,” highlighting the importance of continuous data collection.
Project 2025 and Conflicting Approaches to Abortion Data
Interestingly, the decision to eliminate the CDC research team appears to contradict aspects of Project 2025, a well-known conservative policy document. Project 2025 advocated for a significant expansion of the CDC’s “abortion surveillance“. It proposed reducing funding to states that did not provide comprehensive abortion data to the CDC, specifying information about “exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.” It also suggested broadening data collection to encompass miscarriages, stillbirths, and “treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy)”.
Privacy and Ethical Concerns Regarding Expanded Data Collection
These proposals generated alarm among researchers and raised substantial concerns regarding patient data privacy, especially given the intensely sensitive and controversial nature of abortion. However, amidst the political uncertainties, experts remain unsure whether another government agency will ultimately adopt Project 2025’s recommendations regarding expanded abortion data collection and utilization.
Ongoing Concerns About Data Mandates and Patient Privacy
Maddow-Zimet conveyed that concerns about potential data mandates and the appropriate utilization of sensitive patient information persist. He stated, “I don’t think that we’re necessarily any less concerned than we were before about the possibility of these kind of data mandates going into effect and/or using the data in appropriate ways to either make providers ask patients questions they wouldn’t have otherwise asked, that are very stigmatizing, or potentially put providers at risk,” underscoring the delicate balance between data collection and patient well-being.