Weirdly, abortion rates actually went up in almost every state that banned them after the Dobbs decision.
March 26, 2026
Original Paper
The Post-Dobbs Abortion Irony
SSRN · 6465261
The Takeaway
While bans successfully blocked life-saving medical care in hospitals, they inadvertently catalyzed a surge in telehealth and mail-order pills that made elective procedures cheaper and more accessible than before. This created a 'post-Dobbs irony' where the laws only managed to restrict the specific medical procedures they claimed to protect, while increasing the total number of abortions performed.
From the abstract
Abortion bans purport to save fetal life and protect maternal health. But they are actually having the opposite effect: abortion rates have increased in nearly every state with an abortion ban and maternal health has worsened. Many predicted that post-Dobbs America would mirror pre-Roe America. Back then, abortions provided by doctors and hospitals were safe but hard to access while everyday abortions were dangerous. But the post-Dobbs world looks nothing like its pre-Roe counterpart. Abortion p