Abortions fell 2% the year Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade: CDC

(WASHINGTON) — The number of abortions performed in the U.S. fell slightly in 2022, the year the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, a new federal report found.

In 2022, a total of 613,383 legal abortions were reported by 48 areas. Among the 47 areas that consistently reported data from 2021 to 2022, there was a decrease of 2% from the 622,108 abortions performed in 2021 to 609,360, according to the annual abortion surveillance report, published Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The 48 areas included 46 states, the District of Columbia and New York City, excluding California, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.

The abortion rate was 11.2 abortions per 1,000 women between ages 15 and 44 in 2022, a decrease of 3% from 11.6 abortions per 1,000 women the prior year, according to data from 46 states and New York City.

Rates were lowest in Missouri and highest New Mexico, respectively, in 2022. After Roe v. Wade was overruled, Missouri passed a near-total abortion ban with limited exceptions while abortions remained unrestricted based on gestational duration in New Mexico. However, in 2024, Missouri voters approved an amendment enshrining the right to reproductive freedom in the state constitution, including abortion care.

Dr. Adam Jacobs, medical director of the division of complex family planning at the Mount Sinai Heath System in New York, said he does not believe Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health — the Supreme Court decision that led to Roe v. Wade’s overruling — is a major reason why abortion rates dropped between 2021 and 2022.

“Many of the bans did not go into place or a lot of the structural changes did not go into place in the calendar year of 2022, so I don’t think you would see that impact in this report,” he told ABC News.

Jacobs said abortion numbers and rates have been decreasing for years, and key reasons include the Affordable Care Act. The law gives women more access to preventive services, including long-lasting reversible contraception.

The report found that women in their 20s accounted for more than half of abortions in 2022 and had the highest abortion rates. Comparatively, adolescents under age 15 and women aged 40 or older accounted for the lowest percentages of abortions and had the lowest abortion rates.

Between 2013 and 2022, abortion rates decreased among all age groups except for women between ages 30 and 34, for whom rates increased.

When it came to breaking down the share of abortions based on gestational age, the report found that most abortions, or 78.6%, were performed at 9 weeks gestation and nearly all abortions were performed under 13 weeks gestation.

More than half of abortions were early medication ones performed at or under 9 weeks gestation followed by surgical abortions at or under 13 weeks gestation.

Surgical abortions performed past 13 weeks gestation accounted for just 6.9% of all abortions in 2022 and medication abortion past 9 weeks gestation accounted for 4.3%.

Black women accounted for the highest percentage of abortions at 39.5% followed by white women at 31.9% and Hispanic women at 21.2%, according to the report.

Black women had the highest rate at 24.4 abortions per 1,000 women between ages 15 and 44 and white women had the lowest rate at 5.7 abortions per 1,000 women.

Jacobs said that gains have been made in providing care to marginalized groups, but factors including unequal access to quality family planning services may be why abortion rates are higher for Black women compared to white women.

“If you have access to highly effective contraception, you end up having [fewer] unintended pregnancies,” he said.

For 2022, 87.7% of abortions were among unmarried women compared to 12.3% among married women, the report found.

Additionally, a plurality of abortions, or 40.6%, were among women who had never had a previous live birth, and a majority, or 56.1%, were among those who had never received an abortion before.

In 2021, the most recent year for which data from the CDC’s Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System were reviewed, five women died because of complications from legally induced abortions.

As of Wednesday, 13 states have ceased nearly all abortion services and four states have enacted six-week bans, according to an ABC News tally. Meanwhile, nine states and the District of Columbia have no restrictions based on gestational duration.

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