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Monthly Abortions Continue To Trend Up in the US in 2024, New Report Shows

CNN, August 7, 2024

Despite restrictions and bans that have taken effect in the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision revoked the federal right to an abortion, the average number of abortions provided each month in the United States continues to rise, a new report shows. There were an average of 98,990 abortions each month in the first three months of 2024, according to the latest data from #WeCount, a research project from the Society of Family Planning. That’s about 14% higher than the average from the same period last year, or about 12,000 more abortions each month. There are seasonal patterns and some month-to-month fluctuation in abortion rates, but in January, monthly abortions topped 100,000 for the first time since #WeCount started tracking about two years ago. “I am expecting the number to plateau at some point. But with each report, we see the numbers increase, so we’re not at that plateau just yet,” said Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, co-chair of #WeCount and a professor at the University of California, San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health. “There continues to be a lot of unmet need that is being met in various ways.” Much of the increase has been driven by a surge in medication abortions, especially those provided through telehealth. When #WeCount started collecting data from abortion providers in April 2022, about 4% of all abortions were medication abortions provided through telehealth. The latest report shows that 20% of all abortions in March 2024 were telehealth abortions. Medication abortion is a method by which someone ends their pregnancy by taking two drugs – mifepristone and misoprostol – rather than having a surgical procedure. The US Food and Drug Administration approved the drugs for abortion use more than two decades ago, and the regimen is approved for use up to 10 weeks gestation. Research has long found that medication abortion is safe and effective, and recent studies have shown that to be true even when the patient gets the medicine through a telehealth appointment. A rise in telehealth abortions can help keep schedules more open for people who need in-person care, Upadhyay said. The new report shows that the number of in-person abortions in the first three months of 2024 was about the same as it was in the first three months of 2023, while telehealth abortions rose 28%.

Some OB-GYNs Aren’t Getting Abortion Training, Report Finds, While Pregnancy Complications Are on the Rise

NBC News, August 1, 2024

Obstetrician-gynecologists are seeing more pregnant patients with dangerous medical complications two-plus years after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, while at the same time receiving less training as residents about how to perform abortions, according to a new report. The findings, shared exclusively with NBC News, are the result of a monthslong investigation by Democrats on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. They’re based on conversations with leaders and educators from 20 OB-GYN residency programs conducted from February to June. Half of those programs are in states that restrict abortion access. The report highlights several worrisome effects of abortion restrictions instituted after Roe v. Wade was overturned, including fewer applicants to OB-GYN residency programs in states that restrict abortion, practicing OB-GYNs moving out of these states and new doctors being left unprepared to treat pregnant patients in life-threatening scenarios. Several residency program directors interviewed for the report recalled dangerous, sometimes tragic, situations in states with abortion bans. One director described a patient who died from sepsis after she wasn’t able to get an abortion. Another said their hospital had to hold off on providing an abortion for a patient whose amniotic sac had ruptured at 20 weeks, which creates a risk of infection. The report also reinforces the conclusions of other prior research: that pregnant patients have to travel longer distances to obtain abortions or wind up visiting multiple hospitals before they can find one that will treat them for complex medical issues. The share of patients traveling to other states for abortions doubled from 2020 to 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion access. The report also highlights how little education some OB-GYN residents are receiving in how to provide an abortion. In the past, residency programs often partnered with abortion clinics to provide that training, but in states with abortion bans, those clinics have shut down. Some programs pay for residents to get such training out-of-state, but that often requires additional medical licenses and liability insurance and means residents must spend multiple weeks away from home.

With Harris and Walz, Democrats Put Abortion Rights at the Top of the Agenda

NBC News, August 6, 2024

Months before he was selected as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz toured a Planned Parenthood clinic in his state alongside Harris – the first time a sitting president or vice president had visited an abortion provider. That visit in March put Minnesota’s efforts to safeguard reproductive rights in the spotlight. Now, Harris and Walz represent a Democratic ticket that vocally supports access to abortion and fertility treatment, during an election in which those issues are expected to be important to voters and a focus of many Democratic campaigns. Minnesota was the first state to pass a law protecting abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022. The law, which Walz signed in January 2023, stipulates that local governments – cities, counties, towns, etc. – cannot regulate a person’s choice to obtain an abortion or other reproductive services. A few months later, Walz signed a second abortion-rights law – that statute prohibits the arrest of abortion providers in Minnesota and protects people who travel there to avoid another state’s abortion ban. According to the law, Minnesota officials do not have to turn over a patient’s health records in response to another state’s subpoena or court order. Minnesota, which traditionally votes for Democratic presidential candidates, has some of the most progressive abortion policies in the country. Abortion has been legal there since the Roe decision in 1974. In 1995, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that abortion rights were protected by the state’s constitution. Since Roe was overturned, the state has adopted additional measures to make abortions easier to obtain. In July 2022, a district court judge struck down several requirements that hindered access, including a rule that only physicians could perform abortions and a mandatory 24-hour waiting period. Abortions are also covered by state Medicaid funds. In addition to his support for abortion access, Walz has championed in vitro fertilization. Many abortion rights supporters worry that access to fertility treatment is under threat post-Dobbs, since IVF often involves discarding embryos due to genetic abnormalities or because they are no longer needed. Some who believe in the notion of fetal personhood have opposed that practice. Walz told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in March that his two children were born with the help of fertility treatments, which his wife had been receiving for seven years before getting pregnant with their daughter.

As Iowa’s Maternity Care Deserts Continue To Grow, Doctors Say the State’s New Abortion Ban Will Only Make Matters Worse

CNN, August 5, 2024

Dr. Emily Boevers is the only full-time OBGYN at a critical access hospital in a rural city in Iowa about 10 miles from the farm she grew up on. She’s the only full-time OBGYN in the county, in a state that just banned most abortions. Iowa enacted a law last week banning abortion once fetal cardiac activity can be detected, around six weeks into pregnancy, before many people even know they’re pregnant. The law includes exceptions for rape, incest and medical emergencies that threaten the life of the mother, and fetal abnormalities that are incompatible with life. “What’s going to come to fruition at some point is that for a lot of us, we’re going to have a moment where we have to decide if we’re going to do the right thing for the patient that’s in front of us and risk our license, or if we want to step back and potentially let a patient – let a mother in our community – die from an obstetric complication, but preserve our license and our ability to continue to care for the other people in our rural communities,” Boevers said. It’s a nightmare scenario that could become reality for doctors in Iowa. It’s also one that some doctors just aren’t willing to face. Health care leaders are sounding the alarm that the constraints placed on them by the new abortion law could drive maternity care providers out of state and deter new ones from coming in, at a time when Iowa desperately needs them. Iowa has the lowest per capita ratio of OBGYN providers to Medicare beneficiaries in the nation, according to a 2022 study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. More than 33% of counties in the state are considered maternity care deserts, where access to services is limited or absent, and 68,815 women live in a county without a single obstetric provider, according to a 2023 March of Dimes report. The state is predominantly rural, with more than 10% of its population living below the poverty line, according to 2020 federal data.

Since Fall of ‘Roe,’ Self-Managed Abortions Have Increased

KFF Health News, August 2, 2024

The percentage of people who say they’ve tried to end a pregnancy without medical assistance increased after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That’s according to a study published Tuesday in the online journal JAMA Network Open. Tia Freeman, a reproductive health organizer, leads workshops for Tennesseans on how to safely take medication abortion pills outside of medical settings. Abortion is almost entirely illegal in Tennessee. Freeman, who lives near Nashville, said people planning to stop pregnancies have all sorts of reasons for wanting to do so without help from the formal health care system – including the cost of traveling to another state, challenge of finding child care, and fear of lost wages. “Some people, it’s that they don’t have the support networks in their families where they would need to have someone drive them to a clinic and then sit with them,” said Freeman, who works for Self-Managed Abortion; Safe and Supported, a U.S.-based project of Women Help Women, an international nonprofit that advocates for abortion access. “Maybe their family is super conservative and they would rather get the pills in their home and do it by themselves,” she said. The new study is from Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, a research group based at the University of California-San Francisco. The researchers surveyed more than 7,000 people ages 15 to 49 from December 2021 to January 2022 and another 7,000-plus from June 2023 to July 2023. Of the respondents who had attempted self-managed abortions, they found the percentage who used the abortion pill mifepristone was 11 in 2023 – up from 6.6 before the Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights in 2022. One of the most common reasons for seeking a self-administered abortion was privacy concerns, said a study co-author, epidemiologist Lauren Ralph. “So not wanting others to know that they were seeking or in need of an abortion or wanted to maintain autonomy in the decision,” Ralph said. “They liked it was something under their control that they could do on their own.”

ICYMI: In Case You Missed It

We are pleased to see this historic settlement addressing disability discrimination in mammography access. We applaud @HHSOCR for its critical work as we continue to advocate for equitable access to sexual and reproductive health care for disabled women. https://t.co/1Zjfn788vE

— National Partnership (@NPWF) August 6, 2024

 

 

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Note: The information contained in this publication reflects media coverage of women’s health issues and does not necessarily reflect the views of the National Partnership for Women & Families.