Weirdly, abortion rates actually went up in almost every state that banned them after the Dobbs decision.
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.
The Post-Dobbs Abortion Irony
SSRN · 6465261
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