(NRLC) When the abortion industry started getting new numbers from their member clinics seeming to show abortion increases after Dobbs, they tried to make it sound like this was a sign of abortion’s persistent popularity or even “need” among America’s women.
While they admitted that states with legal protections in place for unborn children and their mothers were seeing abortions drop within their borders, they argued these were compensated for by many women were traveling and getting their abortions in other states where these were still legal.
Whether or not there was an actual increase or how much it was may take a while to determine. However a huge factor in the high numbers of women traveling to other states was that their travel, and sometimes even their abortions, were being paid for by private abortion funds.
Now, with the immediate “crisis” past, support for these private abortion funds is drying up, and with it, one hopes, the numbers of women traveling for “free” abortions.
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Abortion business sustained by abortion travel
After Dobbs, abortion in states with legal protections for unborn children and their mothers saw in state abortions drop to near zero. Virtually everyone in the abortion industry says so.
The Society for Family Planning (SFP) began an abortion count among its members two months before Dobbs and has done monthly counts since that time. There are either no or very few abortions officially listed in its “We Count” reports for those states with full protections after July or August 2022. (A few states took a while to sort out their post Dobbs policies in the legislatures and the courts).
The Guttmacher Institute started monthly reports of its own in 2023. Though it does list some abortions for states with certain gestational limitations (e.g., Georgia, with a heartbeat law, North Carolina, with a 12 week limit), it simply does not have other states with protective laws like Texas, Kentucky, or Idaho even listed in its new count.
Both Guttmacher and SFP do show a marked increase in the numbers of women traveling to other states for abortion in their counts. SFP’s “We Count” study showed abortions surging in states like California, New York, and Illinois in the months following Dobbs. Guttmacher reported that 171,000 women traveled for abortions in 2023 (New York Times, 6/13/24).
Guttmacher statistics claim that a substantial portion of some of these abortion-friendly states’ business came from women traveling from elsewhere. In Illinois, 18,870, or 42% of the state’s abortion patients for 2023, came from out of state. Some 14,180 of Kansas’ abortions were to women from other states. In New Mexico in 2023, 71% of abortion patients came from other states. Over 6,000 patients in New York and California traveled from elsewhere.
Notably, in 2023, before new laws went into effect, there were 15,790 abortions in North Carolina, 8,000 in Georgia, and 5,780 in Florida who came from other states.
Boosting national totals?
Chemical abortion packets delivered by mail also played a big role in keeping the abortion business afloat (SFP estimates that over 40,000 women ordered abortion pills online in the last half of 2023). But abortion travel was clearly a major factor in the increases SFP and Guttmacher reported since Dobbs.
SFP said the number of monthly abortions rose from about 82,000 a month in 2022 to 86,000 a month in 2023. Guttmacher said that the total number of abortions it estimated for 2023 was 1,026,690, up 11% from 2020, when the total was 930,160.
While there are reasons to question these numbers, there is no question that promoted and sponsored abortion travel has played a major role in keeping the abortion industry afloat.
Old clinic staff as travel agents
Guttmacher recently released a new report claiming that the number of abortion clinics in the U.S. has dropped by 5%, going from 807 in 2020 to 765 in 2023. The number went from 63 abortion clinics in states with “total bans” to zero from 2020 to 2203. There was an increase of 21 in states without “bans,” but the net loss was 42.
This can be misleading. An old clinic might close but a giant new megaclinic in a neighboring state may pick up the slack. In some cases, a skeleton staff remains but largely turns the old clinic into a travel agency. (See “The Texas Abortion Ban Has Turned Clinics Into Travel Agencies,” Mother Jones, 6/9/22.)
Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas spokesperson Autumn Keiser informed a local television station that a “navigation team” from her clinic “essentially acts as a travel agent, providing plane tickets, hotel rooms, gas cards, and options to reduce the cost of the abortion service” (KCBD, 11/12/21).
Search the Planned Parenthood website for an abortion clinic in Texas and you’ll get a message that their abortion center is “Temporarily closed from 06/24/2022 until further notice.” Continue searching and you’ll read that “Due to state law, this health center is unable to provide abortion services. Click here to learn more about where abortion is legal.”
Follow through on the link and you’ll be directed to a search portal that will allow you to find the closest clinic to you in another state and information about how you can schedule an abortion there. If your insurance doesn’t pay, they also helpfully note that “Abortion funds may also be able to help you cover both medical costs and travel costs.”
All expenses paid?
The link on Planned Parenthood’s website for the traveling woman takes the would-be patient to the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), “a network of 100 abortion funds.” About these, the NNAF says “Abortion funds are grassroots organizations that support people seeking abortion access. Together, we’re organizing at the crossroads of racial, economic, and reproductive justice.”
They are of different sizes and strengths and cover different geographic areas or demographics. One of the oldest, the DC Abortion Fund, funds “abortion seekers all over the country.” It emphasizes that Washington, DC is a “safe haven” for abortion access because there are no parental involvement laws and abortion is legal “at every stage of pregnancy.”
Donations spiked after Dobbs and U.S. abortion funds dispensed close to $37 million to 102,855 in the year following that decision. That was an 88% increase over their previous year’s dispersal (Stat News, 1/23/24).
A later June 24, 2024, story in Huffpost said NNAF provided $36 million towards abortion and over $10 million in “travel and logistical support” in 2023.
It doesn’t take a degree in mathematics to figure that this clearly covers a major portion of the increases claimed by SFP and Guttmacher.
We know both from statistical and anecdotal information that some pregnant women in these states decided to stay home and have their babies once the abortion clinics in their states closed down. But this information on abortion travel agencies and abortion fund grants is a clear indication that some pregnant mothers who might have been on the fence about what to do, may have been swayed to the abortion side by offers of free travel and free “medical care.”
Now that the initial shock of Dobbs has ebbed and many abortion funds are drying up, it will be interesting to see what decisions pregnant women make in these states without that “assistance” and these promotional incentives.
Running short of free money
In a June 26, 2024, story, Bloomberg News reports that due to falling donations, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) is cutting the abortion assistance budget for its hotline in half, from $6 million a month to just $3 million.
The report continues that “Support for individuals will be capped at 30% of procedure costs, down from 50% in most of the US and 100% in some places like Georgia and Florida.” (In case you didn’t catch that, NAF had been covering 100% of abortion costs for some Georgia and Florida patients.)
Furthermore, in the eleven months following Dobbs (July 2022 to May 2023), the hotline helped to pay for 982 plane, train, or bus trips, 235% more trips than it paid for in the same time frame the year before.
NAF tells Bloomberg News that individual contributions to the hotline increased by 135% in 2022, but then fell by almost 40% last year.
Funding cuts
Several abortion funds were reporting problems after early post Dobbs “successes.” Stat News (1/23/24) reported that the Abortion Fund of Ohio, after spending $1.5 million to help nearly 4,400 women get abortions in 2023, stopped taking calls in mid-December of 2023 and was suspending operations until February 1, 2024.
Many abortion funds are hurting and are responding by capping, cutting, or “pausing” disbursements. Some are offering only 30% of travel costs, when it might have been 50% or even full cost before. Some are limiting funds to women from a certain state or region. One fund in Indiana decided to provide funding only to those nine weeks or more pregnant though it said exceptions might be made for minors or those pregnant from rape. (Stat News, 1/23/24).
Other funds like the Utah Abortion Fund and Indigenous Women Rising also faced funding pauses and other funds have seen donations falling. Bree Wallace, director of intake at the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund in Florida, told Stat News that “Every single abortion fund” has seen a drop in funds. “I think we’re all at lower numbers than we’d like to be” (Stat News, 1/23/24).
The DC Abortion Fund acknowledges that the funding dropoff is even affecting powerful well known organizations like theirs. Alicia Dingus, development director for DC Abortion Fund, tells Huffpost that while her organization raised $1.7 million last year, they’ve had to half their budget because donations have fallen.
Clearly concerned, Dingus told Huffpost (6/24/24) that “We shouldn’t be in a constant state of crisis and panic because we’re here to support people who are already scrambling. But here we are, fighting for resources and asking questions like: ‘Will we have jobs in the future? Will we exist?’”
Funds had previously been so generous that they invited scammers, funders admitted, women simply looking for free travel. In an effort to economize, funds are trying to be more careful in making disbursements (Stat News 1/23/24).
What will pregnant women do without free abortions?
The takeaway from this analysis is that whatever increases there were in U.S. abortions in the year post-Dobbs, these were in many ways artificial, that is, not so much a matter of market forces or customer demand as they were a response to a costly and calculated product promotion.
Tweet This: Whatever increases there were in U.S. abortions in the year post-Dobbs, these were in many ways artificial.
Women unsure about motherhood and their economic circumstances were offered financial support, and sometimes free travel and medical services, if they chose abortion. Some accepted that offer.
But now the abortion industry cannot afford to keep giving away free abortions, and the incentives have changed.
With that devilish deal now off the table, how many will continue to make that same decision and how many will now reconsider what life offers for them and their babies?
Editor's note: Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., is National Right to Life's director of Education & Research.This article was published by National Right to Life News and is reprinted with permission.
