North Carolina abortion travel tripled after Dobbs
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The number of out-of-state travelers seeking abortion care more than tripled in the year after the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Why it matters: The study adds growing evidence that North Carolina became a landing spot for many patients living in neighboring states with more restrictive abortion laws.
Driving the news: The study — written by researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina; the University of California, San Diego and UNC-Chapel Hill — looks at the year preceding the Dobbs decision (June 2021 to June 2022) and the year after (June 2022 to June 2023).
- That means, though, it does not include data from after North Carolina lowered the state's cutoff for abortion access from 20 weeks to 12 weeks and added a 72-hour waiting period.
By the numbers: The study found that the number of out-of-state patients receiving abortions in North Carolina increased from 5,596 in the year before Dobbs to 17,703 in the year after.
- The number of North Carolinians seeking abortion care remained about the same (28,077 versus 28,057).
- The largest sources of out-of-state travelers were Georgia and South Carolina (which have six-week bans), as well as Tennessee and Alabama (which have nearly total bans).
- Patients' average travel distance grew from 156 miles to 258 miles.
Between the lines: Even after lowering its cutoff for abortion access to 12 weeks, the state remains a destination for out-of-state patients, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which noted that 36% of patients receiving abortions in 2024 were out-of-state residents.
- Guttmacher estimated that nearly 46,000 patients receiving abortions were in North Carolina in 2024, WUNC reported.
- That compares to 45,760 patients receiving abortions in the state between June 2022 and June 2023, according to the JAMA study, before the new North Carolina restrictions were in place.