Despite media claims, abortions likely haven't dropped in 2025. Here's why.

While preliminary data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute estimates that in the first six months of 2025, there was a five percent (5%) decline in "clinician-provided abortions" in states that do not have laws protecting all children from abortion, there is good reason to doubt these numbers..

The preliminary data estimates (collected far differently than before the reversal of Roe v. Wade) also show an eight percent (8%) decline in abortions in pro-abortion states for women traveling from pro-life states.

But while media outlets claim this means the number of abortions is dropping for the first time since the end of Roe, at-home DIY abortions by pill are not declining.

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Key Takeaways:

Guttmacher has published preliminary data for the first half of 2025, which the media claims shows a decrease in abortions.
However, the data leaves out a significant number of abortions done by the abortion pill, which now comprises the majority of abortions in the U.S.
This data should not be used to interpret any sort of decline in the number of abortions in the United States.

The Details:

In their headlines regarding the data, The Hill claimed, "Abortions declining for first time since Dobbs: research" and Time announced, "For the First Time Since Roe v. Wade Was Overturned, Abortions Appear to Be Decreasing."

But the preliminary data from Guttmacher admittedly "do not yet provide a basis for full-year findings" but rather "timely insights into the current abortion landscape" — which means no one should be using the preliminary data to make any determinations about abortion habits in 2025.

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Leaving Out the Abortion Pill

The truth of the matter is that if 'in-clinic' abortions are indeed declining in pro-abortion states, it's likely not because overall abortions are declining, but is instead because use of the abortion pill is now the most common type of abortion (accounting for about 63% of abortions annually) — and women are taking it at home.

Guttmacher reported:

New findings from the Monthly Abortion Provision Study show that an estimated 518,940 clinician-provided abortions occurred in the first six months of 2025 in states without total abortion bans: a 5% decrease compared to the same period in 2024.

It noted that the decline of in-clinic abortions is a reflection of the "expanding availability of medication abortion via shield law provision in states with total bans" as well as the "hardship" of traveling for an abortion.

Guttmacher noted (emphasis added):

Importantly, these preliminary data do not yet provide a basis for full-year findings and do not include abortion pills mailed by clinicians under the protection of shield laws to individuals residing in states with total bans. They also do not include data on self-managed abortions, including abortion pills obtained from community support networks or websites. As such, the new data represent an undercount of the total number of abortions occurring in the United States.

In other words, what good are these preliminary estimates, if they do not account for a large portion of the most common method of abortion?

Guttmacher was clear that the data do not include abortion pills mailed from pro-abortion states into pro-life states or abortion pills used by women who obtained them online or in their local communities.

Guttmacher data from 2024 show that telehealth abortions accounted for 14% of all abortions, and the abortion pill accounted for 63% of all abortions in 2023. Guttmacher also noted that, according to #WeCount, there were 34,500 chemical abortions provided via shield laws to states protecting all preborn children from abortion in the first half of 2024 alone.

If the in-clinic abortion rate continues at the same pace as it has at the beginning of 2025 (based on Guttmacher numbers), and if abortion pill use continues to grow, the number of abortions in 2025 could ultimately surpass those in 2024.

In addition, despite the supposed 2025 decline of abortion travel, out-of-state travel for abortions remains higher than pre-Dobbs, and abortion travel specifically to New York increased 51% when comparing the first half of 2024 with the first half of 2025.

Looking at snapshots of data from the first half of this year really doesn't tell us much.

Long term abortion industry plan: Telehealth abortion by pills

What we do know is that abortion businesses are closing their doors even in pro-abortion states and potentially committing fewer in-clinic abortions — not because of pro-life laws or the very recent Medicaid defunding, but because that has been the long-term plan for years.

Prior to even the Covid-19 pandemic, which helped to boost and expand access to the dangerous abortion pill, the abortion industry had been looking to the abortion pill to help it cut overhead costs and protect abortionists from bearing the responsibilities of botched abortions. Abortion industry insiders have been hoping to make the abortion pill available over the counter as early as 2017.

When a woman takes the abortion pill at home, an abortionist often instructs her to go to the ER when she experiences a complication, which as many as 11% of women who take the abortion pill do, according to a recent analysis. She is also instructed to lie to the ER staff about having taken the abortion pill, claiming she is suffering a natural miscarriage.

This practice skews the safety data on the abortion pill, making it appear safer while causing miscarriage and pregnancy to appear more dangerous.

The Bottom Line:

The data presented by Guttmacher regarding the first half of 2025 in no way signify a drop in total abortion numbers.

Abortion businesses may be closing their doors and fewer surgical abortions might be taking place, but the abortion pill is more accessible than ever.

Touted as easy and safe, it is neither, and women and children are suffering from the push to move abortion procedures out of 'clinics' and into women's homes. The abortion industry can then blame pro-life laws for the devastation, claiming that pro-life laws pushed women into a corner when in reality, telehealth abortions have been the goal for years.

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