The first estimate of births since Dobbs found that almost a quarter of women who would have gotten abortions carried their pregnancies to term.The first data on births since Roe v. Wade was overturned shows how much abortion bans have had their intended effect: Births increased in every state with a ban, an analysis of the data shows.By comparing birth statistics in states before and after the bans passed, researchers estimated that the laws caused around 32,000 annual births, based on the first six months of 2023, a relatively small increase that was in line with overall expectations.Until now, studies have shown that many women in states with bans have ended their pregnancies anyway, by traveling to other states or ordering pills online. What they have been unable to show is how many women have not done so, and carried their pregnancies to term. The new analysis, published Friday as a working paper by the Institute of Labor Economics, found that in the first six months of the year, between one-fifth and one-fourth of women living in states with bans — who may have otherwise sought an abortion — did not get one.“The importance of our results is when you take away access, it can affect fertility,” said Daniel Dench, an economist at Georgia Tech and an author of the paper with Mayra Pineda-Torres of Georgia Tech and Caitlin Myers of Middlebury College. “When you make it harder, women can’t always get out of states to obtain abortion.”Overall, data suggests that the number of legal abortions nationwide has stayed steady or slightly increased since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, despite abortion bans in what are now 14 states. This is probably because of new clinics that opened in states where it is legal, and the emergence of new ways to order abortion pills online, expanding access for both women who traveled to those states and those who lived there.“This is an inequality story,” Professor Myers said. “Most people are getting out of ban states, one way or another, and more people in protected states are getting abortions. And at the same time, this shows something those data cannot show: There’s a significant minority of people in ban states that do get trapped.”The researchers used birth data, by age and race, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2005 through June 2023. They used a statistical method that compared states with similar trends in births before the Dobbs decision to estimate how much a ban changed the expected birthrate. This increased their certainty that the change was because of the policy and not other factors.They found that births increased 2.3 percent, on average, in states with bans relative to states where abortion remained legal.The analysis showed that the increased births were disproportionately among women in their 20s and Black and Hispanic women, which researchers said could be because these groups tend to be poorer, making it harder to travel. They are also the demographic groups that have tended to be more likely to seek abortions.Dr. Alison Norris, who studies reproductive health at Ohio State and was not involved in the study, said she was not surprised to see births increasing, particularly among those groups. She noted that before Dobbs, abortion access was already limited in many states, so “any measure of change that we see will in some ways be an underestimate of the challenges that people experience.”The biggest increases in births were in states where women had to travel the farthest to reach an abortion clinic. Texas, where the average increase in driving distance to the nearest abortion clinic was 453 miles, had a 5.1 percent increase in births, relative to states that did not pass a ban but had similar trends before Dobbs. Mississippi, where it increased 240 miles, had a 4.4 percent increase.In states where there was less of a change in driving distance to the nearest clinic, there was a smaller relative change in births. Missouri, for instance, had only one clinic, in St. Louis. When it closed, the average driving distance to the nearest clinic increased only two miles, because clinics along the Illinois border were already serving Missourians. Births there increased just 0.4 percent.There was also evidence that online abortion pills ordered from overseas vendors played a role in some states. The three states in which the increases in births were less than the researchers had predicted based on travel distances — Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana — also had large increases in orders for medication abortions from the largest overseas provider, according to an analysis of those orders.“The insinuation of a lot of coverage of such data points is that it’s a bad thing for there to be more children welcomed in states with better laws than in states that fast-track abortion,” said Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, in an email. “It’s a triumph that pro-life policies result in lives saved.”The data on births is preliminary: A fuller accounting of the effect of Dobbs on the fertility rate, including county-level data, will not be available for another year. The researchers can’t be certain that the increase in births is attributed to women who wanted abortions but couldn’t get them, but the timing and consistency of the results suggest so.The researchers said these trends could change as more birth data becomes available. The women giving birth in the first half of the year would have already been pregnant when abortion bans began, or they became pregnant soon after. Since the data ended, there have been new restrictions on abortion in some places, and access has expanded in others.Births could decline. New shield laws aim to legally protect providers who mail abortion pills to states with bans, and people might be changing their behaviors around sex and contraception in response to bans. Or births could increase as more states restrict abortion; some of this may depend on the outcome of a case to restrict the mailing of one of the two abortion pills.“The abortion landscape continues evolving,” Professor Pineda-Torres said. “People are adjusting, providers are adjusting, laws are adjusting.”We want to hear from you

New data shows that the number of abortions fell by more than 10,000.In the first two months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, legal abortions nationwide declined by more than 10,000, a drop of about 6 percent, according to the first attempt at a nationwide count of abortions since the decision.Thirteen states banned or severely restricted abortion during those months, mostly in the South, and legal abortions in those states fell to close to zero, according to detailed estimates made by a consortium of academics and abortion providers. Nine more states added major abortion restrictions, and legal abortions in those states fell by a third. In states with bans and restrictions, there were about 22,000 fewer abortions in July and August, compared with the baseline of April, before the decision.In states where abortion remained legal, the number of abortions increased by roughly 12,000, or 11 percent. That suggests that around half of women who were unable to get abortions in states with bans traveled to another state to get one.But even with those increases, thousands of abortions appear to have been prevented by the new state laws.Dr. Alison Norris, a professor of epidemiology at Ohio State and a co-author of the report, called the decline “a shock to the system.”The data comes from a new organization called WeCount, which is led by the Society of Family Planning, a group that supports abortion rights. It is collecting abortion data from clinics, hospitals and telemedicine providers across the United States. It obtained detailed abortion counts from 79 percent of the nation’s abortion providers, which were responsible for 82 percent of all abortions before the court’s Dobbs decision. Researchers used adjustments based on state data and time trends to estimate the missing data.Read More on Abortion Issues in AmericaWhat Is Abortion?: In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, simply defining the word abortion has taken on new political, legal and medical consequences.Military: The Pentagon is seeking to reassure service members worried about having access to abortions in states where the procedure is banned with travel funds and other support. Risking Everything: Doctors and midwives in blue states are working to get abortion pills into red states. In doing so, they are setting the stage for a historic legal clash.A Proposed Nationwide Ban: Sen. Lindsey Graham’s proposal to ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy would be much earlier than many state laws. Here’s how it compares.The total decrease in abortions is likely to be lower than the cited estimate because the data does not include abortions outside the regulated U.S. health system, including so-called self-managed abortions that do not involve a medical provider. A growing number of women have been ordering abortion pills online from overseas providers or obtaining them from Mexico, where a pill that can end a pregnancy early in gestation is available over-the-counter as an ulcer medicine. Some women might also have turned to herbs or other methods to end pregnancies.“We are celebrating the fact that at least 10,000 babies have a chance at life,” said Kristan Hawkins, the president of the anti-abortion group Students for Life.“It’s a sign of course correction and of ordinary Americans finally having a say in how many lives are tragically lost to the tragedy of abortion,” she said.Detailed information about how many abortions are performed in the United States has typically taken years to collect and publish. WeCount was created to provide more real-time data from a more comprehensive group of providers.Because the WeCount data is new, it cannot compare abortion numbers this summer from those last summer. Studies suggest that abortion typically follows a seasonal pattern, peaking in February and March before declining in summer months. Some of the measured decline may also reflect such trends.The changes were calculated by comparing the number of legal abortions in the months after the decision with the number of abortions provided in April. At that time, Texas had already imposed a major abortion restriction, and abortion was difficult to get in other states, but it was still legal in all 50 states.WeCount also found that abortions nationwide increased in the two-month period after the draft of the Supreme Court decision was leaked but before Roe was overturned, perhaps indicating that some women were seeking abortions earlier in pregnancy than they might have otherwise, or that clinics were expanding capacity in preparation for bans.Studies of previous abortion restrictions have shown that while some women without access to a nearby clinic travel long distances to obtain abortions, many do not. The typical abortion patient is poor, unmarried and a mother. And the women who are most affected by bans are those who struggle with the cost and logistical challenges of interstate travel, including transportation, lodging, child care and time off work.“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,” said Kari White, who studies reproductive health at the University of Texas at Austin and is on WeCount’s research committee. “Even for the people who make it to another state, this is a hardship.”Since the Supreme Court ruling, a growing network of nonprofit groups has raised money to help women seeking abortion with travel and logistical costs. The WeCount data suggests that, even with these efforts, many women who might have had abortions if they were available nearby did not obtain them in other states.Melissa Fowler is the chief program officer at the National Abortion Federation, an association of independent abortion clinics. She said her members had opened new locations and expanded hours. The organization has hired a team of social workers and receptionists to help women arrange appointments and travel. But, she said, she was not surprised to see abortions declining. “With all this preparation, and all the resources that are available, we know there are still people who are being denied care,” she said.Although the WeCount report did not document where interstate abortion travelers came from, the states with large increases were located near states that banned abortions. (Not all clinics gave this information to the group when they shared the number of abortions they had provided.) North Carolina, Kansas, Colorado and Illinois had the largest increases by percent. But some women did travel outside of their region: New York, which does not border any states that banned abortion, had a substantial increase.Number of Legal Abortions by State in 2022Abortions declined nearly to zero in states that banned them, but they increased in many states where abortion remained legal.

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyUpshotSupported byContinue reading the main storyIn Their Own Words: Why Health Experts Say Elementary Schools Should OpenWith proper safety measures, doctors and scientists said in a survey, the benefits outweigh the risks.Margot Sanger-Katz and March 2, 2021Updated 4:10 p.m. ETStudents at the Child Center of N.Y. in Corona, Queens, last month.Credit…Naima Green for The New York TimesScientists and doctors who study infectious disease in children largely agreed, in a recent New York Times survey about school openings, that elementary school students should be able to attend in-person school now. With safety measures like masking and opening windows, the benefits outweigh the risks, the majority of the 175 respondents said.In some ways, they were more supportive of broad reopening than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was in recently published guidelines. But the experts pointed to the large share of schools in the United States and worldwide that have opened with minimal in-school spread while using such precautions.Below are a representative range of their comments on key topics, including the risks to children of being out of school; the risks to teachers of being in school; whether vaccines are necessary before opening schools; how to achieve distance in crowded classrooms; what kind of ventilation is needed; and whether their own children’s school districts got it right.In addition to their daily work on Covid-19, most of the experts had school-aged children themselves, half of whom were attending in-person school.They also discussed whether the new variants could change even the best-laid school opening plans. “There will be a lot of unknowns with novel variants,” said Pia MacDonald, an infectious disease epidemiologist at RTI International, a research group. “We need to plan to expect them and to develop strategies to manage school with these new threats.”What do you wish more people understood in the debate over school reopenings?Most of the respondents work in academic research, and about a quarter work as health care providers. We asked them what their expertise taught them that they felt others needed to understand. Over all, they said that data suggests that with precautions, particularly masks, the risk of in-school transmission is low for both children and adults.