Last summer’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade already is saving lives. At least 10,000 fewer legal abortions were performed in the United States in the two months following the Dobbs decision, according to a report on the website FiveThirtyEight.
But while most states saw reductions, states like Kansas saw an increase in abortions.
The study, compiled by the pro-abortion non-profit #WeCount, part of the Society for Family Planning, noted that 10,570 fewer abortions took place in July and August than estimates from before the overturn of Roe.
The data compared the number of legal abortions across each state from April through August to illustrate the difference before and after the Supreme Court’s ruling. States that enacted more-restrictive abortion laws in the wake of the decision saw a drop of more than 22,000 abortions, while states that did not saw an aggregate increase of about 12,000.
“In July, the first full month after Dobbs, in states that had decreases in abortion access, an estimated 9,990 fewer people obtained abortions in those states, as compared to April,” the report said. “In August, 12,380 fewer people obtained abortions in states with declines, as compared to April. Overall, a total of 22,370 fewer people obtained an abortion in states with declines in care.”
A significant trend discovered in the data is that the number of abortions climbed by around 12,000 (11 percent) in states where the act remained legal and without new restrictions. The group observed this could imply that almost half of women unable to obtain abortions in their home state traveled to another state to get one.
The states with the highest increases by percentage included Kansas, North Carolina, Colorado and Illinois. Texas showed the greatest drop, with only ten abortions recorded in the two months following the court’s ruling.
In addition, a total of 10 states recorded zero abortions during the two-month period. For states like Alabama, Oklahoma, and Mississippi, abortion has ended for nearly all cases during the period of the study. Mississippi was the state that brought the case to the Supreme Court, which led to the overturn of Roe. Overall, 13 states with trigger laws ban most or all abortions. The list includes Missouri Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.
–Dwight Widaman | Metro Voice
