Abortion Continues to Increase in 2025 as Telehealth Expands, Especially in States with Bans and Restrictions

Despite many states imposing sweeping abortion bans after Dobbs, more Americans are having abortions, not fewer, according to the Society of Family Planning’s latest #WeCount report.

“Abortion bans don’t stop people from needing and pursuing essential abortion care,” said Alison Norris, M.D., Ph.D., professor at The Ohio State University’s College of Public Health and #WeCount co-chair.

Despite these increases, Ushma Upadhyay, professor and fellow #WeCount co-chair, warned that unwarranted attacks on telehealth abortion may restrict access in the future. “This care is under assault by abortion opponents’ relentless attacks on mifepristone and telehealth—even though medication abortion is backed by a 25-year track record of safety and gold-standard science, and research shows that telehealth abortion is just as safe and effective as in-person care.”  

A Global Telehealth First: Women Help Women Begins Producing Abortion Pill Combipack

The feminist telehealth provider Women Help Women is redesigning how abortion pills are packaged to reflect what users actually need: a combination pack that includes one mifepristone tablet and eight misoprostol tablets for use up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.

“It’s a huge revolution of who actually gets to decide when, how and with the support of whom they can have an abortion and until when,” said Women Help Women coexecutive director Kinga Jelinska. “It centers the needs of users rather than institutions or markets. The underlying notion is that abortion can be friendly, and abortion can be easy.” 

Self-managed abortion is disruptive. We were told that abortion is a difficult decision; that it has to be difficult to access, and that only doctors control it. Self-managed abortion subverts that,” said Lucía Berro Pizzarossa, fellow coexecutive founder.

‘Mife No Matter What’: Community Abortion Providers Pledge to Continue Sharing Free Abortion Pills, Even if FDA Imposes Restrictions

Since 2022, community providers have built a nationwide network discretely mailing free abortion pills to those in ban or restricted states.

People can find community providers through several platforms that research and share information about abortion pill access, including Plan C, I Need An A and Red State Access. On these sites, visitors can search for options by their state or territory. Once the client reaches out, community providers typically respond within 24 hours and mail the pills within 48 hours. The medication typically arrives within seven days, and are shipped in an unmarked, discrete package.

More than 100 people are involved in community provision across the United States. One provider told Ms. why she stepped in to become a community provider: “I saw a great need and I could do it,” noting she is single with no children and is white, making her less vulnerable to police surveillance. “I love helping people. It’s rewarding.”

A recent client wrote back to her community provider with a message of gratitude: “I would like to extend my gratitude and appreciation. What you guys are doing is saving lives and giving us a choice when we don’t have the means of money or the resources. Thank you so much. I received the package and it worked as intended. Thank you for being here for me and millions of other girls that are in need.”

Five Things to Know About Missed Period Pills

If your period is late and you don’t want to be pregnant, do you really have to wait for a positive pregnancy test before you can act? The answer is often no. Increasing availability of “period pills” means you don’t have to wait or sit in uncertainty.

As missed period pills change how people stay in control of their bodies—and how early abortion care may be accessed—we see more questions and, unfortunately, more attacks from those who don’t support a full range of pregnancy options.

Here’s what’s important to know.

Why Attempts to Stop the Flow of Abortion Pills Into Texas Will Fail

Shield laws, telehealth providers and international networks mean Texas’ new bounty-style restrictions are unlikely to stop abortion pills from reaching patients.

“It’s possible that some of the providers may step back, but access is still going to be possible by mail in Texas, regardless of this attempt to instill fear in people,” said Elisa Wells, co-founder and access director at Plan C, which researches and shares information about how people are accessing abortion pills in the United States. “The more crazy stuff that the Texas legislature does around this to try and block access, the more visible the option of pills by mail becomes.”

Digital Deception: Beware the Rise of Fake Telehealth Abortion Clinics

For decades, antiabortion crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) have preyed on vulnerable women, planting themselves next to abortion clinics to misdirect and confuse women seeking abortion care. Now, as telehealth abortion is becoming a more common way to access abortion care—accounting for one in four abortions in 2024—the CPC industry is moving to sabotage this vital option, especially for women living in states with abortion bans and restrictions. The two-billion-dollar CPC industry is now developing telehealth strategies to mislead women seeking telehealth abortion and divert them away from legitimate providers.

Many CPC websites feature pop-up chats purportedly offering consultations with nurses. What’s new today is that more and more CPCs are marketing themselves as telehealth providers, claiming to offer appointments with medical professionals.

“CPCs target the most vulnerable—young people, uninsured and underinsured people, women of color and immigrants—the very people with the fewest options and greatest barriers to abortion and all reproductive healthcare,” said McKenna. “As our country faces worsening maternity care deserts, provider shortages and devastating cuts to the reproductive healthcare safety net, pregnant women and teens need honest, evidence-based care more than ever, not ideologically driven pseudo-health care.” 

How to Spot a Fake Abortion Clinic

I have a confession: Despite tracking antiabortion fake clinics and their seedy dealings for more years, I sometimes get tricked by one. They’re just that devious and deceptive that even I can get duped.

Here’s a check list of what to look for if you’re just not sure that center near you actually provides or refers for abortion.

Ahead of the Ban: How Advance Provision Abortion Pills Are Reshaping Access

An increasing number of healthcare providers are prescribing abortion pills in advance of pregnancy, and many people are ordering these pills to have on hand in case they or a loved one needs them. Between September 2021 and April 2023, over 40,000 people ordered advance provision abortion pills. In one recent national survey, 65 percent of respondents said they would be interested in having these medications on hand. Advance provision abortion pills can significantly shorten the time between the decision to end a pregnancy and having an abortion. Growing legal restrictions on abortion and threats of even more restrictions once Trump is back in office have made this option more important than ever. 

‘Abortion Librarians’: The Online Abortion Resources Squad’s Vital Work on Reddit

If someone needs an abortion and is unsure how to get one, they’ll probably do what seems obvious to many of us: Use Google or another search engine and type “abortion options near me.” It’s likely they’ll find a mishmash of antiabortion crisis pregnancy centers, clinics that aren’t actually near them, and irrelevant information. 

That’s where the Online Abortion Resources Squad (OARS) comes in. We run the r/abortion subreddit on the social media platform Reddit. No matter who you are, where you live, or what you need regarding your abortion, you can write a post on the r/abortion subreddit any day at any time, and you’ll receive a quick, thorough, accurate and compassionate personal response.

U.S. Abortions Continue to Increase, Fueled by Telehealth and Shield State Providers

The number of abortions in the first half of 2024 was significantly higher than the same period for the previous two years—according to the Society of Family Planning’s eighth #WeCount report, released last week, which measures the number of abortions in the U.S. each month from April 2022 through June 2024.

There has been a 20.4 percent increase in just three years, despite abortion bans in 14 states and severe restrictions in many others. (And these numbers only include clinician-provided abortions—there are many more self-managed abortions occurring outside of the formal healthcare system.)