New report finds 25,000 fewer U.S. abortions after Dobbs

Tens of thousands of babies are alive today because of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, according to a report by an abortion-tracking initiative.

The report, released by #WeCount on June 15, found that there were 25,640 cumulative fewer abortions in the nine months after the Dobbs decision, which allowed states to decide abortion policy nearly a year ago, than in the months before it.

#WeCount, a national abortion reporting effort by the Society of Family Planning, which supports abortion, compared the average monthly number of abortions before Dobbs, in April and May 2022, to the number of abortions after Dobbs, from July 2022 to March 2023.

The new number represents a dent in U.S. abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive research organization once associated with Planned Parenthood, nearly 1 million abortions are performed each year. For 2020, the most recent year with data publicly available, it counted 930,160 abortions.

The report by #WeCount found that, following the Dobbs decision on June 24, 2022, the increase in abortion in states where abortion was allowed did not make up for the decrease in states where abortion was banned.

“State pro-life laws are having a real impact,” Chuck Donovan, the president of Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which tracks pro-life laws, told Our Sunday Visitor.

“We are encouraged to see abortions in states with pro-life protections decrease post Dobbs,” he said. “It’s a vital reminder that the work of pro-life Americans matters and touches on real lives.”

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