Report: 2023 Saw Highest Number of Abortions in ‘More Than a Decade’

Last year saw “the highest number and rate of abortions measured in the United States in more than a decade,” according to a report from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.

In 2023 — the first full calendar year following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade — there were an estimated 1,026,690 unborn babies killed in abortions in the formal U.S. health care system and a rate of 15.7 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age, the institute’s Monthly Abortion Provision Study found. That number is a ten percent increase in abortions from 2020.

The study found that every state that had not outlawed abortion saw an increase over 2020 totals in the number of abortions performed.

“The 10 percent increase at the national level in many ways understates the degree to which health systems, providers and support networks have had to scale up care in certain states: States without total bans experienced a 25 percent increase in abortions in 2023 compared with 2020,” according to the press release. “The sharpest increases were seen in states bordering ban states, where abortions increased by 37 percent from 2020 to 2023.”

The report noted that the annual estimates are “certainly an undercount, as they include only those abortions obtained within the formal U.S. health care system: at brick-and-mortar health facilities, such as clinics or doctor’s offices, and via telehealth and virtual providers” and not underground national and international networks, including those that send pills to women in red states.

Guttmacher also found that medication abortions accounted for 63 percent of all abortions in the United States in 2023, up from 53 percent in 2020.

Approximately 642,700 unborn babies were killed via medication abortions within the health care system, the report found.

Medication abortions are typically completed with a two-drug regimen. The first drug, mifepristone, blocks the action of progesterone, which the mother’s body produces to nourish the pregnancy. When progesterone is blocked, the lining of the mother’s uterus deteriorates, and blood and nourishment are cut off to the developing baby, who then dies inside the mother’s womb. The second drug misoprostol (also called Cytotec) then causes contractions and bleeding to expel the baby from the mother’s uterus.

On March 26, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that could have a significant impact on how mifepristone is used in the United States.

The case pertains to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rolling back safety restrictions for mifepristone, including its 2016 action extending the permissible gestational age of the baby for which a girl or woman may take abortion drugs from seven weeks gestation to ten weeks gestation, and its 2021 rule change allowing abortionists to send mifepristone through the mail. The FDA also recently made permanent its rule to allow women and girls to receive a prescription for mifepristone via telemedicine.

The Biden administration has relentlessly promoted medication abortions, and in January of 2023, the FDA allowed retail pharmacies to dispense abortion pills. At the same time, several Democrat governors have stockpiled abortion pills while enacting shield laws that protect health care providers who prescribe mifepristone to women and girls in states with laws protecting the unborn.

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.