Southerners flock to Florida and North Carolina for clinical and medical abortions — as late as possible in North Carolina, usually between weeks 24 and 28, and in Florida until the 15th week of pregnancy. • In 2017, there were 1,587 abortion facilities in the United States, down 5% from 1,671 in 2014. Sixteen percent of facilities in 2017 were abortion clinics (i.e., clinics where more than half of all patient visits were for abortions), 35% were non-specialized clinics, 33% were hospitals, and 16% were private doctors` offices. Sixty percent of all abortions were performed in abortion clinics, 35 percent in non-specialized clinics, 3 percent in hospitals and 1 percent in doctors` offices. [1] Read more Stateline coverage on how states protect or restrict access to abortion. Free birth control correlates with teenage girls who have fewer pregnancies and fewer abortions. A 2014 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found such a link. At the same time, a 2011 study by the Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health found that states where there are more restrictions on abortion have higher maternal mortality rates, higher rates of uninsured pregnant women, higher rates of infant and child deaths, higher rates of substance use disorders in adolescents and lower rates of cancer screening. [15] Osteen could reintroduce the 20-week ban in North Carolina without the participation of lawmakers. However, few abortions occur in the state after 20 weeks. In 2020, 30 abortions were performed in the state after 21 weeks or more, accounting for 0.1% of the total abortions in the state.

This is a different situation from much of the South. Surrounded by states that have primarily taken steps to ban or severely restrict abortion, North Carolina still legally allows the procedure until fetal viability, which typically falls between the 24th and 26th week of pregnancy. • In 2017, 29,500 abortions were performed in North Carolina, although not all abortions that took place in North Carolina were made available to residents of the state: some patients may have traveled from other states and some North Carolina residents may have traveled to another state for an abortion. Between 2014 and 2017, the abortion rate in North Carolina dropped by 3 percent, from 15.1 to 14.6 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age. Abortions in North Carolina account for 3.4% of all abortions in the United States. [1] On Friday, Indiana became the first state after Roe to pass a law banning most abortions. This will radically change the state`s current rules, which allow abortions up to 20 weeks after fertilization. In 2013, the state`s Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (Trap) Act applied in addition to abortion clinics for drug-induced abortions. [21] Nebraska and North Carolina had laws banning abortions after 20 weeks.

[22] This law was still in force in mid-2019. [23] Created by FindLaw`s team of legal writers and drafters | Last updated on 15. July 2022 According to a 2017 report by the Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health, states that attempted to impose additional restrictions on a woman`s ability to access legal abortion had fewer policies to support women`s health, maternal and child health. These states also tended to oppose Medicaid expansion, family leave, medical leave, and sex education in public schools. [16] According to Megan Donovan, senior director of policy at the Guttmacher Institute, states designed to protect a woman`s right to access abortion services have the lowest infant mortality rates in the United States. [16] One of the largest groups of women opposed to the legalization of abortion in the United States are white evangelical Christians in the South. [19] To further increase uncertainty on this issue, a Florida court must decide whether the state constitution protects the right to abortion. While state Supreme Court justices stick to what most legal scholars consider a strong legal precedent suggesting that the state constitution protects abortion rights under its 1980 Privacy Amendment, Florida`s 15-week abortion limit, which went into effect on July 5, could be blocked and the state would return to its old 24-week limit. Now, Georgians looking for abortions head south to Florida or north to North Carolina, depending on where they live. • In 2017, approximately 862,320 abortions took place in the United States. The resulting abortion rate of 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age (15-44 years) represents an 8% decrease from the rate of 14.6 in 2014.

[1] • In 2017, 89% of U.S. counties did not have clinics that performed abortions. About 38 percent of women of childbearing age lived in these counties and would have had to travel elsewhere to have an abortion. [1] Of the patients who aborted in 2014, a third had to travel more than 25 miles in one direction to reach a facility. [2] In the month since the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights, the Red States of the Deep South have gradually criminalized nearly all abortions. Despite pleadings filed earlier this month by doctors, district attorneys and the attorney general`s office to allow the injunction to stand, Osteen quashed it in August. 17 and clarifies that the legal basis for the injunction is no longer valid since, according to Dobbs, there is no constitutional right to abortion before viability.

And Nelson`s group has begun helping its patients in Florida, who are more than 15 weeks pregnant, travel primarily to Illinois, where well-funded health clinics and a favorable state government are ready to perform abortions for tens of thousands of out-of-state patients each year for the foreseeable future. Florida has been a southern destination for abortions for decades. But at the geographical edge of this bloc of Deep South states, abortion is expected to remain legal in two states, at least until the November elections. Doctors come to health care to help patients live the best life possible, Clowse said, and sometimes that means talking to patients about abortion and helping them access it. With increased regulation, she and her colleagues are concerned about their ability to continue to do so and the legal consequences it could have in some states. On July 6, Cooper signed an executive order to protect women`s access to reproductive health care in North Carolina. The ordinance includes provisions that protect abortion patients from extradition outside the state and prohibit state agencies under its control from cooperating in other states to prosecute people traveling to receive or provide legal reproductive health care in North Carolina. While abortion laws in North Carolina can be restrictive, the definition of an illegal abortion is relatively simple.

Abortions are by definition illegal when a doctor or other person gives the mother an instrument or substance with the intention of miscarriage. Unlike their neighboring states, a majority of people in Florida and North Carolina favor maintaining legal abortion, according to recent polls. But because politics doesn`t always follow public opinion, most local political analysts are reluctant to predict the November outcome. Although North Carolina allows abortions to viability, it is one of the few states where patients must wait 72 hours to get an abortion after an initial consultation and see an ultrasound of the fetus before the procedure. Although doctors can usually only perform abortions in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, there is an exception if the pregnancy poses a significant risk to the mother`s health or life. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe in late June, Republican lawmakers in North Carolina called on Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein to ask a federal court to approve a 1973 law limiting abortions to the 20th week of pregnancy. In North Carolina, only a licensed physician, physician, or physician is allowed to perform an abortion in a hospital or clinic licensed to perform abortions.

This is to ensure that abortion is as safe as possible for the mother and to ensure that medical facilities are immediately available if the abortion puts the mother at risk. U.S. District Judge William Osteen Jr. Reinstated North Carolina`s ban on 20-week abortion, reducing the time pregnant women have to request an abortion in the state from fetal viability, which typically falls between the 24th and 26th week of pregnancy. For the past three years, the ban had been blocked by an injunction issued in 2019 by Osteen. Meanwhile, people are already crossing state borders and seeking abortions in North Carolina. Molly Rivera, director of communications for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said in an email that in the first two weeks of July, more than a third of the organization`s appointments for abortion treatments in North Carolina were for out-of-state patients — a rate that is expected to continue to skyrocket. The U.S. Supreme Court`s decision in Roe v.

The Wade decision meant that the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester. [20] However, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women`s Health Organization, No. 19-1392, 597 U.S. ___ (2022) later in 2022. [24] [25] U.S. District Judge William Osteen officially lifted North Carolina`s ban on 20-week abortion “only the life of the mother” in March 2019. Her verdict shifted the date abortions could be performed to the viability date, which is later for many women. [26] [27] Abortion is legal but not easily accessible in North Carolina Access to medical abortions in North Carolina is also more limited than in many other states, so patients must see a doctor in person before receiving pills.