A Patchwork of Abortion Care Across the Midwest, According to Society of Family Planning’s New #WeCount Study

The surge of abortion care in Illinois continues, while access in Indiana and Iowa relies on telehealth through shield laws

CHICAGO, IL, UNITED STATES, December 9, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The latest #WeCount report, released today by the Society of Family Planning, shows that abortion care across the Midwestern states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin varies wildly, depending on state law.

Illinois state law protects abortion access, and the state saw a surge of patients seeking abortion care after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned the national right to abortion. Illinois continues to provide more abortion care than it did before Dobbs, with roughly 7,500 abortions per month in the first half of 2025, compared to around 5,500 abortions per month in the months before Dobbs.

In Indiana, which has an abortion ban with limited exceptions, few abortions happen in person. Even with abortions provided via telehealth under shield laws, the number of abortions in June 2025 was about half of pre-Dobbs levels. In Iowa, which has a six-week abortion ban, in-person care has dropped to one-quarter of the pre-Dobbs numbers, while the number of abortions provided under shield laws now exceeds in-person care.

Wisconsin lifted its total abortion ban in September 2023, and from that time, has seen increased in-person and telehealth abortion numbers. Ohio has seen a steady increase in abortions since Dobbs, driven by telehealth, following the national trend of increases in abortion across the United States.

“Abortion bans don’t stop people from needing and pursuing essential abortion care, and telehealth is helping more people get abortion care, especially in states where abortion is restricted,” said Alison Norris, MD, PhD, and professor at The Ohio State University’s College of Public Health, co-principal investigator of the Ohio Policy Evaluation Network and Society of Family Planning #WeCount Co-Chair. “For Midwesterners – like so many people across the country – getting the care you need still depends on where you live and how much money you have.”

The Society of Family Planning launched the #WeCount effort to count abortions in each state in April 2022, just before the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade and multiple states enacted abortion bans. #WeCount has found that:

- In 2022, the monthly average of abortions in the U.S. totaled about 80,000.

- In 2023, there were 88,000 monthly abortions.

- In 2024, there were 95,000 monthly abortions.

- And there were nearly 99,000 monthly abortions in the first half of 2025.

In 2023, several states passed shield laws, which reduce legal risk for clinicians who provide abortions to patients in states where abortion is prohibited or severely restricted. Since then, nearly all abortions in the 13 states with total abortion bans have been provided via telehealth from providers based in shield states. Abortion providers practicing under shield law protections helped an average of nearly 15,000 people get abortion care each month in the first half of 2025. By June 2025, more than half (55%) of telehealth abortions nationally were provided under shield laws. In Indiana, nearly all abortion care (98%) in the first half of 2025 was provided through shield laws, and in Iowa, the majority (67%) of abortions came through shield providers.

“Telehealth has become a lifeline for people accessing abortion care, especially those in states with abortion bans,” said Ushma Upadhyay, PhD, MPH, professor at the University of California, San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) and Society of Family Planning #WeCount Co-Chair. “But this care is under assault by abortion opponents’ relentless attacks on mifepristone and telehealth—even though medication abortion is backed by a 25-year track record of safety and gold-standard science, and research shows that telehealth abortion is just as safe and effective as in-person care.”

The full #WeCount report is available here.

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The Society of Family Planning is an academic society of more than 1,900 clinicians, scholars, and partners who are dedicated to just and equitable abortion and contraception informed by science. The Society of Family Planning’s #WeCount effort is a national initiative that reports the monthly number of abortions in the U.S. by state and month, starting in April 2022. #WeCount data include clinician-provided abortions, defined in this report as medication or procedural abortions completed by a licensed clinician within the U.S. in a clinic, private medical office, hospital, or virtual-only clinic. This report does not reflect any self-managed abortions, defined as any attempt to end a pregnancy outside the formal health care system.

Tara Sweeney
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