Increased 10 percent

Medication abortions increased 10 percent in year after Dobbs decision, study finds

The use of medication abortion in the U.S. jumped from 53 percent of all abortions in 2020 to 63 percent in 2023.

By KIERRA FRAZIER

Medication abortions in the U.S. jumped 10 percent in the first full year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, according to data released Tuesday from the Guttmacher Institute.

The use of medication abortion in the U.S. jumped from making up 53 percent of all abortions in 2020 to 63 percent in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research and advocacy group. In 2023, approximately 642,700 medication abortions took place out of the 1 million abortions within the U.S. health care system.

The data released Tuesday also found that almost every state without a total abortion ban saw a 25 percent increase last year compared to the number of abortions provided in 2020, the last year for which comprehensive estimates from Guttmacher are available.

The sharpest increases were seen in states bordering ban states, where abortions increased by 37 percent from 2020 to 2023. Fourteen states have a ban on abortions at any point in pregnancy, with a few exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

The Guttmacher Institute estimates that the total number of medication abortions is higher than the number provided in its data because it only accounts for abortions that take place in the formal health care system. That number doesn’t include self-managed medication abortions.

The data comes as the Supreme Court reenters the abortion debate this month and is scheduled to hear oral arguments on how patients can access mifepristone, the commonly used abortion pill, on March 26. Mifepristone is used in combination with another pill, misoprostol, in a majority of abortions nationwide. It is approved for use up to around 10 weeks of pregnancy.

The conservative group Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine brought the case challenging policies expanding access to mifepristone. Those policies, issued in recent years by the FDA, have allowed the pills to be prescribed online, mailed to patients and dispensed at brick-and-mortar pharmacies.

The outcome of the case could have an impact on millions — even those in states that protect abortion rights — because mifepristone has become the most common method of terminating a pregnancy.