Where Data Tells the Story
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According to NGO Society of Family Planning, the number of virtual-only abortion appointments has risen in the United States since the overturning of precedent Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court around three years ago to the point where they actually caused overall U.S. abortion number to increase.
Experts interviewed on the topic said that the rise of virtual-only appointments actually increased access to abortions for women in rural areas independent of the legal status of abortion in their state. For several past decades, U.S. abortion numbers had been falling as experts said that, among other reasons, restrictions put on abortions in the pre-internet age were working. Abortion numbers actually started to rise again before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, at around the turn of the current decade.
While providers needed time to gear up and abortion numbers initially sunk following the Supreme Court decision in June 2022, appointments by clinics that do not offer in-person meetings of doctors and patients and instead sent an abortion pill via the mail began to become more common at around the one-year mark after states had been freed to pass their own abortion laws. In December of 2024, the Society of Family Planning estimated that almost 26,000 such appointments took place, up from only 8,500 three years prior.
Virtual-only appointments can take place in states where abortion is legal. Also included in the count are virtual abortions provided via shield laws to states where abortions have been banned. Shield laws state that abortion providers can offer procedures to patients who traveled to their state from a state where abortion is illegal or via telehealth to a state where abortions are banned. They exist, for example, in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York state and Washington state.
Meanwhile, virtual appointments by brick-and-mortar abortion providers also rose, but only to around 1,500 per month. However, these appointments were not tracked separately previously and are included with regular in-person appointments for the purpose of this chart. They represent a much smaller part of virtual appointments.
As of the latest available data, 14 U.S. states have currently banned abortions, the biggest being Texas, Tennessee and Indiana. Four more states, among them Florida and Georgia, restrict abortions to six weeks of gestational age or four weeks after a pregnancy occurred/two weeks after a missed period. Strict bans are currently being blocked by courts in five additional states.