When Florida’s ban on abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy began on May 1, the number of abortions didn’t drop as much as it has when other states implemented similar policies, a study released Thursday estimates.
The study by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion access, suggests that Florida clinics, abortion funds and support networks were better prepared than their counterparts in other states to help women get abortions legally by detecting pregnancies earlier and using out-of-state telehealth pill prescriptions.
It’s the latest report to underscore that women are still finding ways to end their pregnancies despite two years of bans and restrictions in Republican-controlled states since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended a nationwide right to abortion. Previous studies have found that the number of abortions nationally has risen slightly compared with the period before that ruling.
“An infrastructure of abortion funds and support organizations really has come into play to get patients to services as quickly as they can,” Guttmacher data scientist Isaac Maddow-Zimet said of the Florida findings.