Despite bans, the United States recorded the highest abortion rate in a decade

The number of abortions in the United States exceeded one million last year for the first time in more than a decade, which also means a 10% increase from 2020.

“The reality is that abortion bans and restrictions are not going to eliminate the need for abortion care,” Señaló Clara Trullenque, you from Planned Parenthood.

Almost two-thirds of abortions (63%) performed in the United States in 2023 were performed with drugs, the Guttmacher Institute reported this Tuesdaya major research center that defends women’s right to voluntary termination of pregnancy.

The results of this study have been made public a week before a hearing in the Supreme Court on the restoration, by a court of ultraconservative appeal, of restrictions on access to the abortion pill.

The Guttmacher Institute reports a new increase in the proportion of medical abortions out of the total abortions performed in the official health system: 63% in 2023, compared to 53% in 2020.

This increase is probably due to greater access, particularly the delivery of abortion pills by mail and the possibility of telemedicine consultations, it explained on its website.

Statistics do not take into account “medical abortions that take place outside the official health systemnor abortion pills sent by mail to people in states where abortion is totally prohibited,” he said.

Since the Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, abolished the federal guarantee of the right to abortion in June 2022, States are free to legislate in this area. Twenty have banned abortion, including pharmacological, or has strictly restricted its access.

The appeal decision that the Supreme Court will consider next week has restored restrictions on access to mifepristone, one of two pills used in medically induced abortions in the United States.
Currently on hold, The decision would reduce the limit from ten weeks to seven weeks of pregnancywould prohibit the sending of pills by mail and would once again require that they be prescribed exclusively by a doctor.

When the Supreme Court rules, “will have to decide whether to ignore the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) reinstating unnecessary barriers to access to mifepristone or respecting scientific evidence of its safety and effectiveness,” says the Guttmacher Institute.

Earlier this month, two large American pharmacy chains, Walgreens and CVS, announced that They would sell mifepristone with a prescription in some of the states where abortion is still allowed.