One in 10 abortions performed on people who had to travel out of state, report finds
Story at a glance
- New data from the Guttmacher Institute shows that almost one in 10 people seeking an abortion in 2020 traveled out of their home state.
- Report crafters found that the rate of abortion seekers traveling out of state has gone steadily up.
- In 2011, 6 percent of people searching for abortion care traveled out of their home state.
Even before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, thousands of people were traveling across state lines to access abortion care.
In 2020, almost one in every 10 people trying to get an abortion traveled outside of their home state for service, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute, one of the country’s leading non-governmental institutions studying reproductive rights.
Study crafters found that 81,120 out of the 930,160 abortions — or 9 percent — that took place in 2020 were obtained by people traveling outside of their state of residence.
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That number is three percentage points higher than what researchers calculated for 2011 and experts believe more people will seek abortion care outside of their home state now that the federal protections for abortion care have been undone.
The same report found that the sharpest increase in abortion seekers traveling out of state for services occurred in states hostile to abortion.
In the 29 states labeled as “hostile to abortion rights” in 2020 residents who traveled out of state to seek care increased from 9 percent in 2011 to 15 percent in 2020.
Meanwhile, in more “middle-ground” states the number of people who traveled across state lines for abortion care increased slightly less, from 6 percent to 9 percent between those same years.
That increase was even more slight in states that are generally supportive of abortion rights, where the number of residents who traveled out of state for care only went up by one percentage point, from 2 percent in 2011 to 3 percent in 2020, the report found.
Crafters believe that uptick in abortion seekers who will have to leave their home states to access care will continue to go up now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned and more state-level steps have been taken to ban abortions.
Early research has found that tightened abortion restrictions, like Texas’ abortion ban, are forcing people to travel out of state for care. But more comprehensive data after 2020 is needed to officially determine this, the report states.
Last year, Texas lawmakers passed a bill banning abortion at 6 weeks. After its implementation, 1,400 people were forced to travel out of state for an abortion, the institute said.
In the 26 states the Guttmacher Institute determined were likely or certain to ban abortion after the overturning of Roe, 15 percent of residents had to travel out of state for care in 2020.
And out of those 15 percent, 46 percent traveled to states that have now banned or restricted abortion care or will do so in the foreseeable future, according to the report.
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Source: TEST FEED1
