Abortion Numbers in America On Pace for Another New High After Dobbs
For the past few years since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, abortion numbers have been increasing, largely because of self-induced abortion facilitated by telehealth.
The number of preborn image-bearers of God murdered annually in the United States is now set to rise for a third consecutive year, according to new data from the Society of Family Planning.
There were 98,800 monthly abortions for the first six months of 2025, and if the pattern holds for the second half of this year, the 95,300 monthly abortions recorded in 2024 will have been eclipsed.
Pro-Life regulations passed since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, even in conservative states which now claim to ban abortion, fail to prevent these abortions while also directly facilitating them by keeping the murder of preborn babies legal for women.
But our analyses at the Foundation to Abolish Abortion have been warning about these outcomes for multiple years, and we have been working to communicate these warnings to lawmakers with the power to abolish abortion once and for all.
Pro-Life Laws Fail to Deter Abortions
The data from the Society of Family Planning reveal that telehealth abortions now compose 27% of overall abortion numbers in the United States, an increase from 5% only three years ago.
When a woman seeks a telehealth abortion, she consults virtually with an abortion provider and then receives abortion pills in the mail, allowing her to self-induce her own abortion. The number of telehealth abortions occurring in the United States drastically increased from 58,000 in the second quarter of 2024 to a new record of 79,600 in the second quarter of 2025.
The abortion providers in blue states are under shield laws, which protect them from civil or criminal complaints after they send abortion pills into red states through telehealth. There were 15,000 abortions per month for the first half of 2025 protected by shield laws, meaning that at least 90,000 preborn babies were murdered under the protection of shield laws in the first six months of this year alone.
There are also growing community networks and overseas providers working to send abortion pills to women who want to murder their preborn babies. The data from the Society of Family Planning only cover abortions in the formal healthcare system, meaning that they are vastly underestimating the number of babies murdered in the United States.
Pro-Life regulations in states claiming to have banned abortion are failing to prevent the flow of abortion pills. Because these regulations involve complete legal immunity for women who willfully self-induce their own abortions, there are no meaningful legal deterrents to prevent women from murdering their preborn babies.
Pro-Life establishment groups in conservative states which finally acknowledge that abortion numbers are increasing have tried to pass new regulations on abortion pills.
But those regulations are poorly equipped to handle the influx of the substances. They seek to threaten abortion pill providers with civil or criminal penalties, but when those providers are operating in shield law states or foreign countries, they cannot be held accountable.
The regulations meanwhile protect women who order abortion pills, ensuring that women under those jurisdictions still have explicit legal permission to self-induce their abortions.
Sounding the Alarm in the States
Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, multiple analyses from the Foundation to Abolish Abortion have warned about rising self-induced abortion numbers, and how Pro-Life regulations keeping abortion legal for women fail to prevent them.
We published the latest version of our “Babies Unprotected” report at the end of last year, providing comprehensive information about abortion numbers increasing in conservative states with purported abortion bans. “Babies Unprotected” warns that because no states actually criminalize self-induced abortion, women are able to order abortion pills and willfully murder their preborn babies without any legal consequences.
These analyses have been very conservative. We had initially estimated that the purported ban states would see 218,000 abortions in 2024. When further data about abortion numbers were released, they indicated 246,000 abortions in those states for last year.
Beyond warning conservative Christians about these rising abortion numbers, analyses from the Foundation to Abolish Abortion have been brought to bear in numerous state legislative debates, impacting the conversation about finally abolishing abortion.
Whether advancing equal protection bills that would truly abolish abortion or raising concerns about bills falling short of that standard, we have been warning lawmakers that they must address rising abortion numbers by criminalizing abortion as murder for all parties willfully involved.
The preborn babies legally murdered every single year in the United States, including those murdered in conservative states claiming to ban abortion, are image-bearers of God. If we continue to deny them equal protection of the laws, then abortion will never be abolished, and the bloodshed will continue.