Women living in U.S. states with abortion restrictions have switched from traveling out of state for the procedure to taking abortion pills prescribed via telehealth, according to a report released Tuesday by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.
In 13 states with abortion bans, about 91,000 women received abortion pill prescriptions via telehealth in 2025, the report said. That figure marks an increase of more than 25% compared to 72,000 prescriptions in 2024, according to the institute’s estimates.
Conversely, the report found that the number of women moving from states with abortion bans to those with less restrictive laws fell from 74,000 in 2024 to about 62,000 in 2025.
Nationally, the number of people traveling to get an abortion fell to 142,000 last year, down from the 170,000 recorded in 2024 and 154,000 in 2023.
“Collectively, these estimates suggest a significant shift in the way people in ban states access abortion care, with fewer people traveling out of state and more accessing care via telehealth,” wrote the report’s authors, Isaac Maddow-Zimet and Kimya Forouzan.
The report noted that the trend has been facilitated by so-called “shield laws,” which protect providers from prosecution by states where abortion is illegal. Eight US states – California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington – have such laws.
Nationally, the number of recorded abortions in 2025 was more than 1.12 million, largely unchanged since 2024 and the highest rate since 2009.
After the US Supreme Court overturned federal protections for abortion in 2022, 13 states have enacted near-total bans on the procedure, and another six have significantly restricted access.
