• Posted April 17, 2025

Fewer Americans Traveled for Abortions in 2024, Report Finds

THURSDAY, April 17, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Fewer Americans traveled out of state for an abortion in 2024, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute, a group that supports abortion rights.

The report found that about 155,000 people crossed state lines for abortion care last year, down 9% from 2023. 

The total number of abortions stayed steady, however, with 1,038,100 performed in states where it is still legal, The Washington Post said.

Travel has become a key issue since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending the constitutional right to abortion. 

More than a dozen states have since enacted near-total bans, making it harder for many people to access care without leaving their home state.

“It’s not just the cost of travel itself or the cost of the procedure,” Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a data scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, told The Post. “It’s also the kind of navigational support of trying to figure out how to navigate a patchwork of laws, find a clinic with appointment availability, get child care — most abortion patients have children — find accommodation, often for multiple days.”

One reason fewer people traveled: Donations to support abortion travel have declined while the need has gone up. 

“We know that there was a big increase in donations to those organizations immediately post-[Roe’s reversal]. We know also that those donations have dropped off substantially, and then at the same time, we have increased need,” Maddow-Zimet said.

More patients are now using virtual services to get abortion pills from licensed providers in states with shield laws that protect doctors from prosecution, The Post reported.

Nationwide, these types of abortions rose from 4% in April 2022 to 20% by June 2024, with more than 19,000 telehealth abortions happening each month, according to the Society of Family Planning.

Patients “can still get safe, legal care from a licensed practitioner without having to make child-care arrangements or skip work or school,” said Julie Kay, executive director of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, an abortion rights group. 

“They don’t have to travel in isolation; they don’t have to deal with clinic harassment,” she added.

Illinois, North Carolina, Kansas and New Mexico saw the most out-of-state patients.

In New Mexico, 69% of all abortions were for people from other states, many coming from Texas and Oklahoma where bans are in place.

Virginia also saw an increase in out-of-state patients, likely from Florida, according to The Post. A new six-week ban — one of the nation's strictest laws — took effect in Florida last May.

Some states are trying to make it harder for people to travel for abortion. Idaho and Tennessee have made it a crime to help minors leave for the procedure without their parents' consent.

In Alabama, a federal judge ruled that the state can’t prosecute groups helping people travel out of state for abortion. The judge said the right to interstate travel is “one of our most fundamental constitutional rights.”

More information

The Center for Reproductive Rights has more on abortion laws by state. 

SOURCE: The Washington Post, April 15, 2025