Following the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned federal abortion protections, a cohort study evaluated the impact on abortion provision and delays in care in Washington state, where abortion remains legal.
The retrospective analysis encompassed 18,379 abortions performed from January 2017 to July 2023 at a high-volume reproductive health care clinic network. Post-Dobbs, the weekly number of procedural abortions increased by 6.35, and the number of out-of-state patients rose by 2 per week.
The study, published in JAMA Network Open, identified significant increases in the weekly number of procedural abortions, the number of out-of-state patients, and the average gestational duration post-Dobbs. The average gestational duration increased by 6.9 days, primarily driven by procedural abortions. However, there were no significant changes in the time from scheduling an appointment to receiving an abortion.
Full disclosures can be found in the original study.