How the abortion rights landscape changed in 2024

2024 began with the anticipation that the Supreme Court would invalidate the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in medication abortions. That didn’t happen, but it did bring attention to how people were stockpiling abortion pills in the wake of Roe being overturned. In the U.S., a medication abortion is usually prescribed when a woman is pregnant. However, the idea of a so-called “advance provision,” is akin to keeping Tylenol around for a fever but instead keeping abortion pills nearby for pregnancy.

While mifepristone was able to retain approval this year, the Supreme Court did leave the door open to future challenges to abortion drugs. More recently, there have been reports of states stockpiling abortion pills, too, in anticipation of the incoming second Trump presidency. Specifically, there are concerns that a Trump-Vance administration could leverage the Comstock Act, an 1873 anti-vice law that bans obscene articles being used for abortion from being mailed. As explained by KFF, a literal interpretation of this could mean that material to produce all abortions would be prohibited from being sent, which could affect other medical care, like miscarriage management, and stop medication abortion from being sent. This would effectively be another form of a nationwide abortion ban.

Immediately after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Google saw the highest volume of searches for “vasectomy” in the past five years. In 2023, preliminary data found a significant uptick in vasectomy consultations. According to the International Journal of Impotence Research, there was a 35 percent increase in vasectomy consultation requests and a 22.4 percent increase in actual vasectomy consultations after the Dobbs decision. Notably, the men seeking vasectomies were younger than before, and a higher number of men without children requested information about the procedure. In 2024, new research found that despite all the attention on male vasectomies post-Dobbs, the rise in tubal sterilizations among females was twice as high as the increase among vasectomies in males.

“This increase is likely reflecting the fear or anxiety among young people about restricted access to abortion and potentially restricted access to contraception down the road,” lead author Jacqueline Ellison, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Pitt School of Public Health, told Salon earlier this year. 

A study published later in 2024 found that the fallout of the Dobbs decision wasn’t only affecting what contraceptive methods patients were seeking, but also how some doctors were responding and counseling their patients in return. Researchers stated that the Dobbs decision had “profoundly” impacted providers’ contraceptive counseling and care.

Pro-abortion activists warned before and after the Dobbs ruling that abortion bans would kill women. This year, multiple news outlets reported on several tragic stories about how this happened. Specifically, ProPublica reported multiple stories of women who died from abortion bans. It was the first time these deaths were deemed “preventable” by a state committee of experts in maternal health.

In one story, a woman named Amber Nicole Thurman, a 28-year-old mother, died less than a month after Georgia passed its abortion law after waiting 20 hours to get treatment for a rare complication from taking an abortion pill. A 10-member committee set up to examine maternal mortality cases deemed she would have likely lived if doctors had used the protocols that had been in place before the Georgia law made them a felony.

Another story involved a woman named Candi Miller, a 41-year-old mother of three, who had been told by doctors that "having another baby could kill her." Miller had lupus, diabetes and hypertension. She took abortion pills ordered online when she found out she was pregnant, and, like Thurman, had an incomplete abortion. In pre-Dobbs Georgia, this would be a manageable problem, because she could go to the emergency room and walk out in a few hours. Instead, it became a death sentence. She died in bed, afraid and in pain. The state committee that reviewed her case maintained that it was also “preventable.”

As Salon reported earlier this year, more abortion ban deaths are happening, but the public just isn’t hearing about them, in part because activists want to protect families from the inevitable backlash if they go public with their stories.

This year, multiple studies reported that the rollback of reproductive rights is causing OB-GYNSs to flee abortion ban states. One study found that one in five OB-GYNs in the state of Texas are considering leaving in due to strict and confusing abortion laws. As Salon previously reported, Idaho is becoming an OB-GYN desert due to reproductive care specialists leaving. Another study found that medical school graduates are avoiding states with abortion bans, making it difficult for hospitals to make up for the departing workers.

There are many consequences for states experiencing such a shrinking workforce. From worsening outcomes for pregnant people and infants, to an added burden on an already strained health care system, significant ripple effects are being felt. 

“I think our system is already starting to fall apart in Idaho, because we've lost our ability to care for pregnant women,” Dr. Kara Cadwallader, who is a family medicine physician in Idaho, told Salon. “It sounds really dramatic, but I think our health care system is starting to unravel.”

During the 2024 election cycle, 10 states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, and South Dakota — asked voters where they stood on abortion access. All the measures would have enshrined rights in the state constitutions to prohibit state legislators from interfering with reproductive care.

While not all of them passed, a majority of them did, which pro-abortion advocates considered to be a victory, especially in states that voted for Trump as president. Missouri, which has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country, passed with 53.5% of the vote to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution, overturning its state ban. In Arizona, voters passed Proposition 139 amending the state constitution to provide a fundamental right to abortion.

“Abortion access isn't just a winning issue with voters; it's a fundamental right that impacts every aspect of their lives,” Mini Timmaraju, Reproductive Freedom for All president and CEO, said in November. “This is a huge victory that reaffirms that voters across the political spectrum in red, blue and purple states will mobilize to protect their freedoms.”