Illinois abortions surged the year Roe fell, with nearly 17,000 patients traveling from other states — a 49% spike

CHICAGO — More than 56,000 abortions were performed in Illinois the year the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, marking the most pregnancy terminations statewide since the mid-1990s, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health’s annual abortion statistics report.

The rise in abortions that year was driven by a roughly 49% spike in out-of-state patients: Nearly 17,000 people came from other states to Illinois to terminate a pregnancy in 2022 compared with roughly 11,000 abortion seekers who traveled from other states in 2021, the data showed.

In contrast, the number of Illinois residents having abortions in-state decreased slightly, from a little over 40,000 in 2021 to nearly 39,000 in 2022.

Abortions overall increased by about 9% from 2021 to 2022, according to the report, which was released Tuesday and includes the most recent state health department data on abortion available.

It’s the first Illinois abortion report to include a partial year following the June 2022 demise of Roe, the landmark Supreme Court case that guaranteed the right to terminate a pregnancy nationwide for nearly 50 years.

The statistics offer a glimpse at the rise in travel for abortion seekers in a post-Roe nation, though the data doesn’t include information on the states where patients are coming from or the distances traveled.

Data for 2023, the first full year without federal abortion protections, aren’t available from the state health department yet.

While abortion rights remain protected in Illinois after the end of Roe, many states in the Midwest and around the country almost entirely banned or severely restricted terminating a pregnancy.

The 2022 spike in total abortions and out-of-state patients was anticipated by Planned Parenthood of Illinois, which saw a 54% increase in overall abortion patients since the fall of Roe, said President and CEO Jennifer Welch.

She added that a quarter of those patients traveled to Illinois for care from another state; Planned Parenthood of Illinois clinics have seen patients from 40 states since the end of Roe.

“This is direct evidence of the Supreme Court’s decision which allows states to enact abortion bans and restrictions, impacting the ability to equitably access care,” she said. “Abortion bans and restrictions absolutely affect people’s ability to access care where they live and have devastating impacts on lives and overall health.”

To keep up with the surge in demand, Planned Parenthood of Illinois expanded abortion services at its Champaign Health Center in 2022 and last month opened a new southern Illinois clinic in Carbondale.

Anna Kinskey, executive director of the anti-abortion organization weDignify, said the “increase in abortions in Illinois is a tragic but expected result of Illinois’ extreme abortion policies, led by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.”

“The impact of these laws is that more unborn children’s lives are ended, more mothers are traumatized and more families are broken,” she said.

The total number of terminated pregnancies in Illinois in 2022 was more than any other year since 1995, the oldest data archived on the health department’s website. Around 53,600 pregnancies were terminated in 1996, the previous record year during that period, according to health department data.

In previous years, the state included a breakdown of abortion numbers per county but is no longer doing so “in order to protect the privacy and safety of those who receive abortions and abortion providers,” the state health department said in a statement.

The most recent statistics do include data on gestational age, patient age and type of abortion.

The data showed that more terminations are occurring later in pregnancy. In 2022, more than 3,100 patients had an abortion at 16 weeks gestation or more in Illinois, a rise from nearly 2,200 in 2021. The majority of terminations, though, are earlier in pregnancy, with most occurring before 11 weeks, according to the data.

Megan Jeyifo, executive director of the Chicago Abortion Fund, said this trend has been reflected in calls to the nonprofit’s helpline: Before the end of Roe, the average gestation of callers was 9.94 weeks compared with 15.61 weeks after the end of federal abortion protections, she said.

“There is no doubt that the abortion bans across the South and Midwest are directly related to this increase, as heightened barriers force people to delay their care,” she said.

As many states have enacted near-bans and tight restrictions in recent years, Illinois has expanded abortion access.

In 2019, Pritzker signed the Illinois Reproductive Health Act, ensconcing abortion rights in state law. In early 2023, he signed a measure that widened the pool of abortion providers to help meet the surge in demand. That legislation also increased protections for abortion patients and health care workers.

“Illinois’ increase in abortion access and numbers means some people who lost access in their home states have been able to obtain abortion care in our state,” Jeyifo said. “But it doesn’t measure the emotional and physical cost of getting to that care — the tremendous hardships that people are overcoming to obtain basic, common, essential health care.”

In addition to delays caused by traveling, Pro-Life Action League Executive Director Eric Scheidler attributed the recent increase in abortions later in pregnancy to “the fact that our state government — and the city of Chicago — are pushing abortion so hard on poor women throughout the region.”

“Illinois has embraced a radically pro-abortion culture,” he added.

The data also showed an increase in minors terminating pregnancies in Illinois. Roughly 1,600 abortion patients were under 18 in 2022 compared to nearly 1,300 in 2021.

Peter Breen of the Chicago-based conservative public interest law firm the Thomas More Society attributed this increase to Illinois repealing parental notice requirements for abortion seekers under 18, which went into effect in June 2022.

“We expect those numbers to only increase in 2023 and beyond,” said Breen, executive vice president and head of litigation at the firm.

Most abortion patients in Illinois were 18 and older, according to the health department data.

Medication abortions have been more common than procedures in recent years, accounting for more than half of all terminations over the past three years. More than 32,000 terminations in 2022 were medication abortions compared with roughly 23,700 procedures, the data showed.

More than half of all abortions nationwide are also medication abortions, which usually involve a two-drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol. But access to mifepristone hangs in the balance with court challenges to the drug looming; the Supreme Court has agreed to review a lower court decision that would make the drug less accessible, but has preserved access to mifepristone in the meantime.

“We should be working to increase access to medication abortion, which can relieve the strain on clinics and hospitals that need to see patients who require procedures or surgery, and can be the best possible option for care in many situations,” said Sarah Garza Resnick, CEO of Personal PAC, an abortion rights advocacy organization .

The number of out-of-state abortions in Illinois has increased every year since 2014, when nearly 3,000 patients crossed state lines to terminate a pregnancy. By 2022, the number of abortion seekers from other states surged to more than five times that amount.

Some reproductive rights experts predict the number of out-of-state abortions will increase in the coming years.

The fall of Roe created “a predictable and preventable public health crisis,” said Julie Lynn, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, which includes southern Illinois.

“As long as the anti-abortion activists continue pushing their anti-abortion and anti-science agenda with policies that shame, harm, and criminalize abortion we will see more patients being forced to flee their home states for abortion care,” she added. “Planned Parenthood and our partners remain committed to ensuring everyone regardless of their income, identity, or ZIP code can make personal health decisions without government interference.”

Scheidler said he expects to see abortion numbers continue to rise in Illinois in the future.

“As long as (Gov.) J.B. Pritzker and the General Assembly continue pushing abortion like they have been, Illinois will continue to earn its reputation as the abortion dumping ground of the Midwest,” he said.

_____