Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade has reduced legal abortions by at least 10,000, study shows

New research from the national research project #WeCount shows that there has been a 6% reduction, which amounts to 10,750, in legal abortions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

This figure doesn’t include self-managed abortions, which could lower the overall reduction in abortions, according to the New York Times.

13 states that have banned most abortions saw their abortions decrease by approximately 22,000, whereas states who have protected abortions have seen an increase in 12,000 abortions performed.

The data shows that there hasn’t been a total absorption of patients from other states who no longer have access to abortion services, which means that thousands of people “felt they had no options,” Ushma Upadhyay, #WeCount co-chairperson and a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, told FiveThirtyEight.

The data suggests that people in restrictive states have travelled a significant distance to get an abortion.

“Some of these states where abortion was banned – Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, for example – are some of the poorest states in our country, and people would have to cross multiple state lines to get to another state where abortion remains legal,” Kari White, who is a University of Texas at Austin researcher who is on the #WeCount research steering committee, told The New York Times.

White added, “Even for the people who make it to another state, this is a hardship.”