As Abortion Bans Spread, so Do Virtual Appointments

According to NGO Society of Family Planning, the number of virtual-only abortion appointments has risen in the United States since the overturning of precedent Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court around two years ago. As providers needed time to gear up, appointments by clinics that do not offer in-person meetings of doctors and patients and instead sent an abortion pill via the mail began to become more common at around the one-year mark after states had been freed to pass their own abortion laws. In July of 2023, the advocacy group estimated that almost 13,700 such appointments took place, up from between 5,200 and 8,600 monthly appointments in the year prior. In March of 2024, the latest month on record, almost 17,800 virtual-only appointments were estimated to have taken place.

Virtual-only appointments can take place in states where abortion is legal. Also included in the count are virtual abortions provided via shield laws to states where abortions have been banned. Shield laws state that abortion providers can offer procedures to patients who traveled to their state from a state where abortion is illegal or via telehealth to a state where abortions are banned. They exist, for example, in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York state and Washington state.

Meanwhile, virtual appointments by brick-and-mortar abortion providers also rose by 250 percent between July 2023 and March 2024 to around 1,800 per month. However, these appointments were not tracked separately previously and are included with regular in-person appointments for the purpose of this chart. They also represent a much smaller part of virtual appointments.

As of the latest available data, 14 U.S. states have currently banned abortions, the biggest being Texas, Tennessee and Indiana. Four more states, among them Florida and Georgia, restrict abortions to six weeks of gestational age or four weeks after a pregnancy occurred/two weeks after a missed period. Strict bans are currently being blocked by courts in five additional states.