A recent study from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute found that in states without comprehensive pro-life laws, both abortions and visits across state borders to obtain abortions declined in 2025.
Data show that within the first six months of 2025, 518,940 clinician-provided abortions occurred in the studied states, down 5% from the same time frame in 2024. Guttmacher also found that the number of women who traveled from another state to have an abortion in the studied states declined 8% across the same period, going from 80,870 women to 74,490.
According to TIME, previous Guttmacher data showed the number of abortions in most states rising in recent years, growing 11% between 2020 and 2023, the year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In 2024, the number of abortions barely rose, increasing by less than 1%. However, Guttmacher found that the number of women traveling to states where abortion was legal decreased slightly between 2023 and 2024 after more than doubling the previous year.
TIME also reported that states that saw major declines in the number of abortions were those that passed legislation in 2024 that protects life after six weeks of pregnancy or are next to states with comprehensive pro-life laws.
Guttmacher hypothesized that the declines in abortions and abortion tourism “are likely driven in part by the availability of medication abortion via shield law provision in states with total abortion bans.”
Shield laws are designed to protect physicians from the legal consequences of mailing abortion drugs into pro-life states. Several incidents this year have tested states’ shield laws, with plaintiffs suing out-of-state healthcare providers for the wrongful death of unborn babies. As The New York Times reported in September, the question of which state’s abortion laws supersede the other’s is still playing out in court and state legislatures.
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TIME reported that Isabel DoCampo, a senior research associate at Guttmacher, explained that the study did not include medication abortions or abortions that occurred in pro-life states via mailed-in abortion drugs. She said that the data are only estimates that should not be considered “to reflect trends in abortion nationwide” and added that the data show that shield laws “are a critical option that people are making use of.”
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