Despite claims from state officials reporting zero or very few abortions in 2023, medical professionals and researchers dispute these numbers, citing the reality of continuing abortion needs for various reasons. This discrepancy raises concerns about the potential politicization of vital statistics.
In Arkansas, state health officials announced a stunning statistic for 2023: The total number of abortions in the state, where some 1.5 million women live, was zero.And in Idaho, home to abortion battles that have recently made their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the official number of recorded abortions was just five.
"It's so clinically dishonest," said Ushma Upadhyay, a public health scientist at the University of California-San Francisco, who co-chairs WeCount, an academic research effort that has kept a tally of the number of abortions nationwide since April 2022. Anti-abortion politicians and activists have cited these statistics to bolster their claims that their decades-long crusade to end abortion is a success.
"Women are still seeking out abortions in Arkansas, whether it's illegally or going out of state for illegal abortion," Mimms told KFF Health News. "We're not naive."The South Dakota Department of Health "compiles information it receives from health care organizations around the state and reports it accordingly," Tia Kafka, its marketing and outreach director, said in an email responding to questions about the statistics.
Practitioners find themselves working in a culture of confusion and fear, which could contribute to a hesitancy to report abortions -- despite some state efforts to make clear when abortion is allowed.The procedure is legal in South Dakota only when a pregnant woman is facing death. Magstadt said doctors should use "reasonable medical judgment" and "document their thought process.
In South Dakota, clinic staff members were required to report the weight of the contents of the uterus, including the woman's blood, a requirement that had no medical purpose and had the effect of exaggerating the weight of pregnancy tissue, said Floren, who worked at a clinic that provided abortion care before the state's ban.
Before Dobbs, such reports recorded procedural and medication abortions. But following the elimination of federal abortion rights, clinics shuttered in states with criminal abortion bans. More patients began accessing abortion medication through online organizations, including Aid Access, that do not fall under mandatory state reporting laws.
Politics ABORTION STATISTICS POLITICS HEALTHCARE RESEARCH
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