US abortion numbers have risen slightly since Roe was overturned, study finds

The number of women getting abortions in the U.S. actually went up in the first three months of 2024 compared with before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a report released Wednesday found, reflecting the lengths that Democratic-controlled states went to expand access.

A major reason for the increase is that some Democratic-controlled states enacted laws to protect doctors who use telemedicine to see patients in places that have abortion bans, according to the quarterly #WeCount report for the Society of Family Planning, which supports abortion access.

The data comes ahead of November elections in which abortion-rights supporters hope the issue will drive voters to the polls. In some places, voters will have a chance to enshrine or reject state-level abortion protections.

Fallout from the Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has remade the way abortion works across the country. The #WeCount data, which has been collected in a monthly survey since April 2022, shows how those providing and seeking abortion have adapted to changing laws.

The survey found that the number of abortions fell to nearly zero in states that ban abortion in all stages of pregnancy and declined by about half in places that ban it after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. Fourteen states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions, and four others bar it after about six weeks of pregnancy.

Numbers went up in places where abortion remains legal until further into pregnancy — and especially in states such as Illinois, Kansas and New Mexico, which border states with bans.

The report estimates that if not for the post-Dobbs bans, there would have been about 9,900 more abortions per month — and 208,000 total since — in those states. The numbers were up by more than 2,600 per month in Illinois, about 1,300 in Virginia, 1,200 in Kansas and more than 500 in New Mexico.

Abortion pills and telemedicine play a key role. In March, doctors in states with laws to protect medical providers used telemedicine to prescribe abortion pills to nearly 10,000 patients in states with bans or restrictions on abortion by telehealth — accounting for about 1 in 10 abortions in the U.S.

Laws to protect medical providers who use telemedicine to prescribe abortion pills started taking effect in some Democratic-led states last year.

“It eases the burden on clinics,” said Ushma Upadhyay, a University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine professor who co-leads #WeCount. “So it creates more space for the people who are coming to clinics.”

Abortion opponents say the fight over the abortion drug mifepristone isn’t over after a narrow Supreme Court ruling that preserved access to it for now. But so far there have not been legal challenges to shield laws.

The latest edition of the survey covers the first three months of this year, when it counted an average of just under 99,000 abortions per month, compared with 84,000 in the two months before Dobbs. January was the first time since the survey began that it has counted more than 100,000 abortions across the country in a single month.

The tracking effort collects monthly data from providers across the country, creating a snapshot of abortion trends. In some states, a portion of the data is estimated. The effort makes data public with less than a six-month lag, giving a picture of trends far faster than annual reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where the most recent report covers abortion in 2021.

Before the shield laws began kicking in and #WeCount started tallying them, people were still getting some pills in places with bans.

One of the states where abortions increased was Florida. That changed in April, when a ban after six weeks' gestation took effect. The data doesn't yet reflect that change.

The policy could change again through a November ballot measure that would make abortion legal until viability, generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks into pregnancy. It needs at least 60% approval to be added to the state constitution.

One vote against it will come from Mia Adkins, a 20-year-old senior at Florida International University.

“Instead of pushing for more abortion legal later in pregnancy, we should be pushing for laws that protect these pregnant parents and students and provide them with the support that they need,” said Akins, a senior at Florida International University.

Florida is one of six states where abortion-related measures are already on the ballot. Determinations from elections officials about adding similar questions are pending in four more states. In one, Nebraska, there are dueling amendments: One to allow access until viability and one to keep the current ban on most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Abortion-rights supporters have prevailed in all seven abortion ballot questions in the U.S. since 2022. That tracks with public opinion polling that has shown growing support for abortion rights, including a recent Associated Press-NORC poll that found 6 in 10 Americans think their state should allow someone to obtain a legal abortion if they don't want to be pregnant for any reason.

An amendment to protect access could be on the ballot in Arizona, a political battleground state where court cases have swung abortion policy — and access — since the Dobbs ruling.

The state Supreme Court ruled in April that Arizona should enforce an 1864 ban on abortions at all stages of pregnancy, only for lawmakers to repeal that law. The state's ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy remains. The ballot measure would expand it to 24 weeks.

Natalie Harper, a 23-year-old independent who usually doesn't vote, said the potential of bringing back the Civil War-era ban “absolutely” impacts her decision to vote for the ballot measure this November. “Seeing that as a possibility really made me realize that everyone’s pro-choice voices need to be heard in hopes it never goes in that direction again,” she said.

In Missouri, which has outlawed almost all abortions and where nearly none were reported in the new data, election officials could soon certify whether a proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights received enough petition signatures to qualify for the ballot in the reliably Republican state.

University of Missouri political scientist Peverill Squire said that if the measure is on the ballot, it could draw out enough Democratic voters to help swing a few competitive legislative races.

“They can seize on the personal freedom arguments the Republicans have generally owned over the recent elections,” he said.

Associated Press writers Sejal Govindarao in Phoenix and David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri, contributed to this report.

Chart showing abortions rise with telehealth prescriptions. A new report shows the number of monthly abortions in the U.S. has risen since the Supreme Court's ruling that opened the door for state bans. The #WeCount report says a major reason for the increase is that some Democratic-controlled states have laws to protect prescribers who use telemedicine to see patients in places with abortion bans. (AP Digital Embed)

Chart showing the change in number of average monthly abortions in the first quarter of 2024 compared with that before the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health ruling. (AP Digital Embed)

FILE - Rod Sommer fills out his ballot during early, in-person voting at the Hamilton County Board of Elections in Cincinnati, Oct. 11, 2023. Voters approved on Nov. 7, 2023 an amendment to the Ohio Constitution to protect access to abortion. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

FILE - Krista Bywater shows her eight-months-pregnant belly during an abortion advocacy rally outside the Supreme Court, May 14, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

FILE - Abortion advocates rally outside the Supreme Court, June 24, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said Wednesday that it authorized its brand on the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria in an apparent Israeli operation targeting Hezbollah's communications network but that another company based in Budapest manufactured them.

Pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah exploded near-simultaneously Tuesday in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least nine people, including an 8-year-old girl, and wounding nearly 3,000.

Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated remote attack.

An American official said Israel briefed the United States on Tuesday after the conclusion of the operation, in which small amounts of explosive secreted in the pagers were detonated. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly.

The AR-924 pagers were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, based in Hungary’s capital, according to a statement released Wednesday by Gold Apollo.

“According to the cooperation agreement, we authorize BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC,” the statement read.

Gold Apollo chair Hsu Ching-kuang told journalists Wednesday that his company has had a licensing agreement with BAC for the past three years, but did not provide evidence of the contract.

At about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, as people shopped for groceries, sat in cafes or drove cars and motorcycles, the pagers in their hands or pockets started heating up and then exploding — leaving blood-splattered scenes and panicking bystanders.

It appeared that many of those hit were members of Hezbollah, but it was not immediately clear if non-Hezbollah members also carried any of the exploding pagers.

The blasts were mainly in areas where the group has a strong presence, particularly a southern Beirut suburb and in the Beqaa region of eastern Lebanon, as well as in Damascus, according to Lebanese security officials and a Hezbollah official. The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Hezbollah, which has pointed the blame at Israel, said in a statement Wednesday morning that it would continue its normal strikes against Israel “as in all the past days” as part of what it describes as a support front for its ally, Hamas, and Palestinians in Gaza.

“This path is continuous and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre on Tuesday that it committed against our people, our families and our fighters in Lebanon,” it said. “This is another reckoning that will come, God willing.”

Hezbollah began firing rockets over the border into Israel on Oct. 8, the day after a deadly Hamas-led attack in southern Israel triggered a massive Israeli counteroffensive and the ongoing war in Gaza. Since then, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged strikes near-daily, killing hundreds in Lebanon and dozens in Israel and displacing tens of thousands on each side of the border.

At hospitals in Beirut on Wednesday, the chaos of the night before had largely subsided, but relatives of the wounded continued to wait.

Lebanon Health Minister Firas Abiad told journalists during a tour on hospitals Wednesday morning that many of the wounded had severe injuries to the eyes, and others had limbs amputated. Journalists were not allowed to enter hospital rooms or film patients.

The health minister said that the wounded had been distributed among all the area hospitals to avoid any single facility being overloaded and added that Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt offered to help in treating the patients.

Earlier Wednesday, an Iraqi military plane landed in Beirut carrying medical equipment, airport officials said. Abiad said the plane was carrying 15 tons of medicine and medical equipment.

Experts believe explosive material was put into the pagers prior to their delivery and use in a sophisticated supply chain infiltration.

The AR-924 pager, advertised as being “rugged,” contains a rechargeable lithium battery, according to specifications once advertised on Gold Apollo’s website before it was apparently taken down Tuesday after the sabotage attack. It could receive texts of up to 100 characters.

It also claimed to have up to 85 days of battery life. That would be crucial in Lebanon, where electricity outages have been common after years of economic collapse. Pagers also run on a different wireless network than mobile phones, making them more resilient in emergencies — one of the reasons why many hospitals worldwide still rely on them.

Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs said from the beginning of 2022 until August 2024, Gold Apollo has exported 260,000 sets of pagers, including more than 40,000 sets between January and August of this year. The ministry said the pagers were exported mainly to European and American countries and that it had no records of direct exports of Gold Apollo pagers to Lebanon.

For Hezbollah, the militants also looked at the pagers as a means to sidestep what’s believed to be intensive Israeli electronic surveillance on mobile phone networks in Lebanon.

“The phone that we have in our hands — I do not have a phone in my hand — is a listening device,” warned Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in a February speech.

He later added: “I tell you that the phone in your hands, in your wife’s hands, and in your children’s hands is the agent. It is a deadly agent, not a simple one. It is a deadly agent that provides specific and accurate information. Therefore, this requires great seriousness when confronting it.”

Associated Press journalists Bassem Mroue and Abby Sewell in Beirut; Zeke Miller in Washington; and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

This shows a sing featuring the names of several companies on the door of a house where a Hungarian company that allegedly manufactured pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria is headquartered in Budapest Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos)

This photo shows a door of a house where a Hungarian company that allegedly manufactured pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria is headquartered in Budapest Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos)

This photo shows a house where a Hungarian company that allegedly manufactured pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria, is headquartered in Budapest Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos)

Civil Defense first-responders carry a man who was wounded after his handheld pager exploded, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024.(AP Photo)

Hsu Ching-kuang, chairman of Apollo Gold, talks about the Taiwan company's communication products at the headquarters in New Taipei City, Taiwan Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Johnson Lai)

Hsu Ching-kuang, chairman of Apollo Gold, talks about the Taiwan company's communication products at the headquarters in New Taipei City, Taiwan Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Johnson Lai)

A police officer inspects a car in which a hand-held pager exploded, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

People gather outside the American University hospital after the arrival of several men who were wounded by exploded handheld pagers, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Bassam Masri)

Lebanese soldiers stand guard at a street that leads to the American University hospital where they bring wounded people whose handheld pager exploded, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)