The group Society of Family Planning has been trying to track abortion numbers since the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. They released their latest WeCount study a week ago, including their estimates for 2024.
"[Our] findings make clear that abortion bans haven’t stopped people from seeking care," said Alison Norris, MD, PhD, WeCount co-chair. "As care shifts across state lines and into telehealth care, what’s emerging is a deeply fragmented system where access depends on where you live, how much money you have, and whether you can overcome barriers to care."
Michael New, PhD, is an assistant professor of practice at The Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America and a senior associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. He takes exception to the WeCount estimates for the year 2024.
"What they're claiming – and what the media is picking up – is that they say that abortions increased in 2024 over 1.1 million and there was an 8% increase over the previous year," he tells AFN.
New, also a senior fellow at Americans United for Life, thinks this is "misleading" for a couple reasons.
"They only really started counting telehealth abortions six months of the way through 2023," he explains. "So, most of the [reported] increase in 2024 … is due to the fact that they were making more of an effort to count telehealth abortions in 2024 than they were in 2023."
As a result, New is "not convinced there was a big increase" in the actual instance of abortion.
Among the SFP's reported findings: in the second quarter of 2022, telehealth abortions accounted for 5% of all abortions. By the end of 2024, the proportion had increased to 25%.
SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said on a call with reporters Monday that it's a priority for her group to keep pushing U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other officials to investigate the safety of abortion pills – and to require that they be dispensed only in person and not via telehealth.
