On Tuesday, we marked the three-year anniversary of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” the ruling read. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”
Pro-lifers would have hoped, then, that in the interim, abortions would have decreased. Sadly, while there are some positive signs, the answer is a resounding, “No.”
As Axios reported on Monday, “abortions in the U.S. continued to rise in 2024 — totaling 1.14 million — despite years of bans and restrictions on reproductive care.”
There’s one major driver of this trend, and it’s going to be one of the biggest challenges for the pro-life cause going forward: so-called “telehealth” abortions where the drug mifepristone is prescribed to women over the phone or Zoom, often without seeing a clinician.
From Axios:
Abortions delivered via telehealth have jumped significantly since Roe v. Wade was overturned, with clinicians protected by shield laws.
“Drivers of these trends are unclear, especially in the context of multiple changes in the service delivery environment,” the #WeCount report from the Society of Family Planning nonprofit said.
While in-person abortion care declined slightly, the majority of abortions still occurred in person.
The number of abortions delivered via telehealth has increased since 2022. Expanded telehealth access to medication abortion has allowed patients to circumvent state laws banning the procedure.
What’s more, many states have “shield laws” that protect providers who give abortion drugs to women in states that have restrictions on abortion.
The #WeCount survey found that there were 12,330 abortions per month, on average, effectuated by clinicians under shield laws to women in states with restrictions. This is out of an average of 95,000 abortions a month on average in 2024 — a whopping 13 percent of all abortions, period.
This has had a relatively devastating effect on attempts to save the unborn, as the report noted.
In the second quarter of 2022, 95 percent of abortions were done in-person compared to only 5 percent with telehealth. Fast forward to the fourth quarter of 2024, where 25 percent of abortions were performed via telehealth, according to the Associated Press.
And this is somewhat by design from states where officials have effectively been encouraging — not just refraining from discouraging, which would be bad enough on its own — professionals to provide abortion services to women in states where it’s banned. As per the AP:
The biggest jump over that time came in the middle of 2023, when laws in some Democratic-controlled states took effect with provisions intended to protect medical professionals who use telehealth to prescribe pills to patients in states where abortion is banned or where there are laws restricting telehealth abortion.
At present, 12 states have banned abortion almost entirely — there are some exceptions — while four states have abortion banned starting at six weeks into a pregnancy.
However, only one state has started to regulate two drugs used as abortifacients as controlled substances: Louisiana, where Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill last May that would potentially put individuals found with the drugs without a valid prescription behind bars for five years.
Then-Vice President Kamala Harris decried the move.
“Absolutely unconscionable. The Louisiana House just passed a bill that would criminalize the possession of medication abortion, with penalties of up to several years of jail time. Let’s be clear: Donald Trump did this,” she wrote on X.
Absolutely unconscionable. The Louisiana House just passed a bill that would criminalize the possession of medication abortion, with penalties of up to several years of jail time.
Let’s be clear: Donald Trump did this.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 21, 2024
“You know you’re doing something right when @KamalaHarris criticizes you,” Landry said in response.
“This bill protects expectant mothers while also allowing these drugs to be prescribed to those with a valid prescription. Maybe Vice President Harris should spend more time fixing our southern border than misleading the American people on Senator @TAPressly’s bill,” he added.
You know you’re doing something right when @KamalaHarris criticizes you. This bill protects expectant mothers while also allowing these drugs to be prescribed to those with a valid prescription.
Maybe Vice President Harris should spend more time fixing our southern border than… https://t.co/xXTqd8O6Ep
— Jeff Landry (@JeffLandry) May 22, 2024
In four other states, similar legislation has been introduced.
There are glimmers of hope elsewhere, too, indicating that the raw number of abortions may not tell the entire story.
In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in February, researchers looked at whether “adoption of complete or 6-week abortion bans [was] associated with differential changes in fertility rates.”
The study, which drew “from birth certificate and U.S. Census Bureau data from 2012 through 2023 for all 50 states and the District of Columbia” and “used a bayesian panel data model to evaluate state-by-subgroup-specific changes in fertility associated with complete or 6-week abortion bans in 14 U.S. states,” found that the laws did save lives.
“There were an estimated 1.01 additional births above expectation per 1,000 females aged 15 through 44 years in states following adoption of abortion bans (60.55 observed vs 59.54 expected; 1.70 percent increase), equivalent to 22,180 excess births,” the study found.
And keep in mind, these weren’t researchers rooting for this outcome. Instead, they seemed alarmed that the babies were being born to disadvantaged people: “Estimated differences were largest among racially minoritized individuals, those without a college degree, Medicaid beneficiaries, unmarried individuals, younger individuals, and those in southern states. Meaning: Estimated differences in fertility associated with abortion bans were largest among people experiencing structural disadvantage and in states with among the worst maternal and child health outcomes,” the authors wrote.
While the rather malodorous specter of researchers deeming it problematic if babies are born to poor people or “racially minoritized individuals” should speak for itself, the evidence is clear that the laws are having some effect. Yet, at the same time, other studies indicate that telehealth abortions and blue-state shield laws are also contributing to higher numbers of abortions, period.
It will likely take a few years to figure out whether this is a quirk of the post-COVID period or whether this really does represent a shift in how the abortion industry and its political enablers are able to push murdering the unborn. What is certain, however, is that the pro-life movement cannot stop with Dobbs. Indeed, that’s the starting line for us, if anything — and we haven’t exactly come out of the gate that well.
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