More than 171,000 women traveled out of state to have abortions in 2023, according to data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.
Following the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling and ended the federal right to abortion, the issue of abortion was returned to individual states. Since then, states have either restricted or expanded their abortion laws.
Guttmacher found that many women, particularly from southern states with stricter abortion regulations, traveled across several states to access abortions or obtain abortion pills.
“Historically, many people traveling from restrictive states went to states that now have total abortion bans,” Guttmacher said in a news release. “For instance, in 2020, over 800 Louisiana residents traveled to Texas for abortion care. Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, that was no longer possible. In 2023, more than 3,500 Louisianans traveled across multiple states to get care in places like Florida, Illinois, and Georgia.”
Texas saw the highest number of women leaving for abortions in 2023, with over 14,000 Texas women going to New Mexico, and several thousand others traveling to various states.
Illinois, transformed into an abortion haven after the end of Roe, received the most out-of-state women seeking abortions. Guttmacher found that roughly 37,300 women came from 16 states to Illinois for abortions.
Kelly Baden, vice president for public policy at the Guttmacher Institute, noted that Florida played a significant role in “maintaining some level of abortion access in the Southeast” in 2023. There were approximately 85,000 abortions in Florida last year, a figure expected to drop due to the state’s six-week abortion restriction that took effect in May. According to Guttmacher, the closest state to Florida allowing abortions past six weeks is North Carolina.
Overall, Guttmacher reported that more than 1 million unborn babies were killed in clinician-performed abortions in 2023.
