The Devastating Stats that Defined Our Post-Dobbs World
There's no quantifying the toll of abortion bans, but a few key numbers help to make sense of it all
It’s impossible to quantify the toll of abortion bans three years after Dobbs: The physical and psychological torture of forced pregnancy, being denied care for life-threatening pregnancies, or just knowing that under the law, you’re effectively a second-class citizen in your own country.
Still, there are numbers that can help us make sense of the last few years without Roe—and they’re probably just the tip of the iceberg.
For starters, the Gender Equity Policy Institute (GEPI) found that mothers living in states that have banned abortion are almost twice as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes, compared with mothers in states where abortion is protected.
As always, Black communities face the brunt of this manmade maternal mortality crisis: Black mothers are 3.3 times as likely as white mothers to die in these abortion-banned states; they were already 2.2 times as likely to die in those same states before Dobbs.
Maternal health is actually improving in states where abortion remains legal—in the first full year after Dobbs, maternal mortality fell by 21% in these states. (So we know abortion bans, which threaten doctors with life in prison for providing health care in some states, are the problem.)
During this same period, the risk of maternal death in Texas was 155% higher than in California. Similarly, Louisiana mothers were three times as likely to die of pregnancy-related causes as mothers in states that protect abortion. And Latina mothers in Texas are almost three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes compared with Latina mothers in California.
Thanks to ProPublica’s reporting, we know of at least five tragic cases of women who have died as a result of state abortion bans: Josseli Barnica, Porsha Ngumezi, and Nevaeh Crain in Texas; and Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller in Georgia. Four of these women were women of color.
In the first year after Roe was overturned, Pregnancy Justice found that more than 200 people were arrested over pregnancy-related criminal charges—the most in a single-year period tracked by the organization. Abortion bans have created an environment where pregnant people are not only at greater risk of death, but at greater risk of state violence via criminalization, by creating an environment where all pregnancies are shrouded in criminal suspicion. Prior to Dobbs, between 2006 and 2020, Pregnancy Justice tracked about 1,300 people who faced criminal charges for conduct associated with pregnancy.
New data shows 1.1 million abortions in the U.S. last year, averaging 95,000 per month—up from 88,000 per month in 2023 and 80,000 per month from April to December 2022. Abortion has always existed and always will—in no small part thanks to abortion pills. Medication abortion comprised the majority of abortions in 2024. Right before Roe was repealed, around one in 20 abortions were facilitated via telehealth. In the last three months of 2024, this rose to one in four abortions via telehealth.
But people still need procedural abortions, and many patients were forced to leave their home states for care they should have been able to receive in their communities: Before Dobbs, one in 10 abortion seekers had to leave their state; that figure has since doubled.
Speaking of leaving states because of abortion bans: Over the last couple years, we’ve seen studies and surveys showing large swaths of the labor force won't work in states that ban abortion, residents of abortion-banned states are moving away in droves, and prospective college students aren’t even applying to college in abortion-banned states. So, it probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that altogether, abortion-banned states are losing over $130 billion annually.
Almost 2 million American women of reproductive age live in counties where both abortion and maternal care are inaccessible, according to data from the March of Dimes. As always, while some people can choose to not live in states with abortion bans, others can’t. Just last year, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research published a report that showed 60% of Black women and girls of reproductive age (6.7 million) live in states that ban abortion.
Over 18 million American women live in an abortion care desert, over 38 million live in a pregnancy care desert, and over 2.6 million live in a broadband internet desert—over 740,000 women live in counties that are simultaneously considered classified as broadband internet deserts and abortion care deserts, per the National Women’s Law Center. So, medication abortion via online telehealth isn’t available to everyone.
Not to mention, pregnancy and maternal care deserts are increasingly being driven by abortion bans, as hospitals shut down labor and delivery departments, struggling to attract OBGYNs who fear state persecution under abortion bans. Relatedly, OBGYNs are being forced to flee anti-abortion states in droves.
We’re not done yet: The leading cause of death for pregnant people in the U.S. is homicide, and abusive situations escalate when someone becomes pregnant. The consequences of being unable to access abortion and reproductive care fall hardest on the most vulnerable, like abuse victims, who are rendered exponentially more vulnerable while pregnant. One study showed that TRAP laws are linked with greater risk of intimate partner violence-related homicide.
Similarly, just last week the National Bureau of Economic Research published a new study that showed abortion bans have increased intimate partner violence across the U.S. since Dobbs, linking these laws to 9,000 additional incidents of intimate partner violence. Before that, in 2023, the National Domestic Violence Hotline reported that acts of reproductive coercion reported to their hotline doubled in the first year after Dobbs.
When the Hotline published a survey of victims’ experiences with reproductive coercion the following year, respondents said access to a nearby reproductive health clinic was a lifeline for navigating abusive relationships. But since Dobbs, one third said they now lack access to a medical professional focused on reproductive health.
The toll of abortion bans on victims and survivors can’t be emphasized enough, and the harrowing stats that indicate this just keep piling up: Back in February 2024, researchers estimated that in 14 states that had banned abortion since Dobbs, 519,981 rapes were associated with 64,565 pregnancies—primarily in states whose abortion bans lack rape exceptions. (To be clear, even with rape exceptions, few doctors are willing to risk their medical license or face prison time for providing care to anyone—similar to how doctors hesitate to or refrain from offering emergency abortions altogether despite so-called medical exceptions.)
Dobbs is three years old. These statistics are only scratching the surface of its devastating impacts—and the snapshot they provide is as damning as feminists and reproductive rights advocates long warned it would be.
I want to challenge what you said about women being ‘second class citizens’ in America. ACTUALLY, WOMEN ARE NOT CITIZENS OF ANY KIND IN AMERICA. ALL AMERICAN WOMEN HAVE BEEN SEXUAL SLAVES UNDER THE LAW SINCE DOBBS. By definition, there is no such thing as halfsies in citizenship, no such thing as partial citizenship, no separate classes of citizenship. One either has full fundamental citizenship rights that are constitutionally protected or one has no rights at all. Any ‘rights' that can be removed by a fanatical rogue band of powerful male fascists dishonestly posing as dispensers of justice and their traitorous female enablers are no rights by any meaning of the law. And that is where we are now. First, a) there are no levels of citizenship, b) a person is either a citizen with full rights or not, and if not, c) then she is a slave with no rights. Under international law slavery is defined as the removal of bodily autonomy by an authority. The US government under Dobbs removed the right to bodily autonomy that is the predicate for American women to be citizens. And second, a) when citizenship with its inherent rights is predicated on one’s sex and therefore b) the lack of citizenship makes all women slaves, c) then all women are sexual slaves under the law. This is crystal clear in international law and at this point, as a lawyer, I do not in any way trust US law — no woman should. There are only two human conditions under any government: you are either a citizen or a slave. There are no other categories, no other levels of rights; it’s all or nothing. THE US GOVERNMENT HAS DECIDED THAT ALL AMERICAN WOMEN ARE SEXUAL SLAVES BY LAW. WHETHER WE ARE WILLING TO FACE IT AND ARTICULATE IT OR NOT, WE ARE NOT IN ANY SENSE CITIZENS.
Thank you Kylie. I remember reading of the 64k rapes, 26k were in my state Texas. Very sad. Appreciate your article.
I was called to jury duty a few months ago. I was frustrated and here’s why. I chose not to say the oath prior to proceeding to voir dire. They took my jury summons and said they would tell the judge.
Prior to all of us entering the courtroom my number was called and the judge inquired why I didn’t say the oath. I told him I do not have full citizen rights because I don’t have bodily autonomy in the state of Texas. Since the state of Texas doesn’t entrust me with my own decisions or to help other women with abortions then I do not feel comfortable say the oath. He told me he understood. Because I didn’t say the oath he told me I could not be part of the jury selection process. The bailiff escorted me out the back of the courtroom! I spoke truth to power 😊