Abortion rate falls by 6% following SCOTUS decision in Dobbs
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – A new report shows there was a decrease of 6% in the number of abortions carried out nationwide since the US Supreme Court this year revoked a federal right to abortion up to viability it had granted in the 1973 case of Roe v Wade. Reversing its ruling in Roe on June 24, the Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion to individual states through its majority decision in Dobbs v Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization, 2022.
In a survey titled #WeCount, the Society of Family Planning tracked the nationwide impact of the Dobbs decision by comparing the numbers of abortions carried out in April, prior to Dobbs, with those carried out in August after Dobbs.
The estimated number of abortions nationwide decreased from 85,020 abortions in April 2022 to 79,620 abortions in August 2022.
“Since the Dobbs decision, there were 5,270 fewer abortions in July and 5,400 fewer in August, for a cumulative total of 10,670 fewer people who had abortions in those months. The national abortion rate decreased from 14 per 1,000 women of reproductive age in April to 13 per 1,000 in August,” SFP said in its report.
The estimated number of abortions carried out in states with outright bans or severe restrictions on the procedure decreased from 8,500 abortions in April to 460 abortions in August 2022 after the SCOTUS decision, the #WeCount report said.
In its implications section, the report noted: “The declines in the numbers of abortions occurred in the same states with the greatest structural and social inequities in terms of maternal morbidity and mortality and poverty. Thus, the impact of the Dobbs decision is not equally distributed.”
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