Women living in U.S. states with abortion restrictions have switched from traveling out of state for the procedure to taking prescription abortion pills 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, according to the report. That figure marks an increase of more than 25% compared to 72,000 prescriptions in 2024, according to institute estimates.
By contrast, the report found that the number of women who traveled 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 who traveled for abortions fell to 142,000 last year, compared to 170,000 in 2024 and 154,000 in 2023.
“Taken together, these estimates suggest a substantial shift in how people in states with outright bans access abortion care, with fewer people traveling out of state and more access to care via telehealth,” wrote the report’s authors, Isaac Maddow-Zimet and Kimya Forouzan.
The report notes that the trend has been facilitated by so-called “shield laws,” which protect providers from being prosecuted by states where abortion is illegal. Eight states in the United States (California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington) have such laws.
Nationally, the number of abortions recorded in 2025 rose to more than 1.12 million, virtually unchanged from 2024 and the highest rate since 2009.
After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down federal protections for abortion in 2022, 13 states instituted near-total bans on the procedure and six more have significantly restricted access.
