Last month, in Pittsburg, Kan., a city of about people mere minutes from the borders of both Missouri and Oklahoma. Health Brief is a coproduction of The Washington Post and KFF Health News.
It’s the second new clinic the regional affiliate has opened in Kansas in a little over two years, to accommodate the growing number of patients coming from Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas and even Louisiana. For many people in the South, Kansas is now the nearest place to get a legal abortion. Fourteen states have with few exceptions since the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 left policies on abortion to the states.
Many more have limited access. And yet, the estimated number of abortions in the United States last year , the highest number in a decade, according to the , a national nonprofit that supports abortion rights. That’s due in part to the efforts of groups such as Planned Parenthood Great Plains to fill the void left in the states with bans.
, according to Guttmacher. That’s a big jump after even though the share of out-of-state patients has been . Not all of the increase in abortions comes from interstate travel, of course.
Telehealth has made medication abortions easier to obtain without traveling. The , including those involving the medication mifepristone, has risen. And Guttmacher data scientist said the majority of the overall abortion increase in recent years came from those in states without total bans.
The increased attention on the issue since and efforts t.