19 March 2024

This is my Shocked Face

Despite, or perhaps more likely because of, Republican efforts to criminalize abortion and birth control, the number of abortions has risen 10% since 2020.

I would not consider this an own goal, because the real goal is to sow fear and dissension among women who might otherwise feel free to express their own sexuality and agency as human beings, so this might be a win:

Abortions in the US have sharply increased despite bans implemented in Republican-led states after the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.

More than 1m abortions were performed in the US in 2023, a 10% increase from 2020, according to research from the Guttmacher Institute, an American policy organization which advocates for sexual and reproductive health.

The latest data provides a more comprehensive picture of abortion access in the first full year after the supreme court issued the Dobbs decision that rolled back federalized rights and protections to abortion access.

A rise in medication abortions largely drove the increase, the Guttmacher Institute said. Also known as medical abortions, medication abortions are performed by taking a dose of two pills: mifepristone and misoprostol.

Medication abortions made up 63% of all abortions in the US in 2023, with 642,700 medication abortions taking place in formal healthcare settings. Only 492,210 medication abortions occurred in 2020, making up 53% of US abortions, the study concluded.

But the number of medication abortions in 2023 may be higher than the study suggests. Current figures do not include self-managed abortions or those who received abortion medication in states where there are total bans.

If you think that this news might prompt some self-reflection from the abortion criminalizing Republicans, you would be wrong.

This was never about preventing abortion anyway.  The evidence is incontrovertible that the anti-abortion movement started as a racist proxy for outrage over the IRS pulling tax exempt status from segregation academies, with a little dose of misogyny on top.

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