Three years ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and conservative states rushed to pass strict new abortion bans or revive old ones still on the books but unenforceable under Roe. And for a short while, things went according to anti-abortion campaigners' wishes, with the U.S. abortion rate—which had been declining since the 1990s anyway—continuing to fall.
But over the past couple of years, the U.S. abortion rate has begun to creep back up, according to data from the Society of Family Planning. There were more abortions in the U.S. in 2024 than in either 2023 or 2022, according to the group's latest #WeCount report.
Strict abortion bans may be working to bolster conservative politicians (may being the operative word; a lot of pro-lifers are put off by the extremism baked into some of these policies). They do not, however, seem to be working at actually stopping abortions.
