Since the beginning of 2021, at least 25 states have passed new laws restricting access to abortion. Oklahoma passed a law that completely bans abortion in the state, with minimal exceptions. Idaho, South Carolina, and Texas have laws that ban abortion as early as a “fetal heartbeat”[1] is detected, which could be six or seven weeks into pregnancy. For people living in these states looking to get an abortion, many will have to travel out-of-state to end their pregnancies. And if the Supreme Court rules that access to abortion can be banned by states, it could lead to even more people seeking an out-of-state abortion.
According to the most recent national abortion data, in 2019 more than 57,000 pregnant people traveled outside of their home states for an abortion. That’s 10% of all abortions reported in the 2019 data. About two-thirds (68.7%) of abortions in Washington, DC were provided to out-of-state residents, the highest rate in the nation. The state with the lowest rate of abortions provided to out-of-state residents was Arizona at 0.5%.
Data on state of residency wasn’t available for about 4,300 out of about 630,000 abortions in the 2019 data. Some states, such as California, Maryland and New Hampshire, don’t report data on the number of abortions performed there. In all, 47 states, as well as Washington, DC and New York City, provide abortion data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
