Out-of-state abortion patients coming to Washington from Idaho up 56% over last year

A year after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, restrictions on abortions in several states have had patients flooding into Washington state for the procedure.

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According to new numbers from Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho shared by Senator Maria Cantwell, out-of-state abortions in Washington rose 36% year-over-year for the period between January and May 2023. That number was even higher for abortion patients from neighboring Idaho at 56%.

Clinics in Central and Eastern Washington have taken on much of that increase. Between January and May of 2022, Planned Parenthood’s Sunnyside clinic took in just one abortion patient. Over that same period in 2023, they took in 23. It was a similar story in Pasco, jumping from 4 patients over those months in 2022 to 34 this year.

Other cities saw increases ranging between 5% (Yakima) and 724% (Moses Lake).

Anecdotally, one Washington doctor reported seeing abortion patients from seven separate states in a single day.

At UW Medicine, doctors reported “a tenfold increase in the number of people requesting sterilization procedures,” Cantwell’s office said, as well as an uptick in patients looking to have contraceptive measures like IUDs removed and replaced.

Washington has 46 total clinics that provide abortion services statewide.