There was much hand-wringing from liberals after the Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2022 ended the federal right to an abortion and led to a rise in restrictions and outright bans on the procedure in several states.

But more than 170,000 people traveled out of state for abortions in 2023, the first full calendar year since the Supreme Court’s ruling, and the total number of abortions last year were the most in a decade, Axios reported Friday, citing data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.

There were 171,300 abortions performed for out-of-state travelers last year, including for the procedure itself or to obtain abortion pills, more than double the number in 2020, Axios reported. Abortions in states without outright bans totaled 1,037,200 — 63% were medicated abortions — and there was an 11.5% increase in clinician-provided abortions since 2020, the last year for which comprehensive estimates are available.

On Thursday, a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court preserved access to mifepristone, part of the drug cocktail used in a medicated abortion.

More than 37,000 people went to Illinois to get an abortion last year, the data showed. Illinois, which allows abortions before fetal viability, generally between 24 and 26 weeks of pregnancy, borders two states, Missouri and Kentucky, whose abortion laws are deemed “most restrictive” by Guttmacher.

Another 15,800 patients went to North Carolina, which allows access up to 12 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy, and 14,900 traveled to New Mexico, which has no term restrictions.

Traveling for abortion care is not new, and the number of people traveling out of state has always been particularly high in states with abortion restrictions, Guttmacher said. But many of the people traveling from restrictive states before went to states that now have total abortion bans.

In 2020, more than 800 Louisiana residents traveled to Texas for abortion care. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022, that was no longer possible, as Texas bans nearly all abortions unless a doctor determines the mother’s life is at risk.

In 2023, more than 3,500 Louisianans traveled across multiple states to get care in places like Florida, Illinois, and Georgia.

Kelly Baden, Guttmacher’s vice president for public policy, said in a news release that Florida’s abortion ban after six weeks of pregnancy “will be devastating not only for Floridians, but also for the thousands of others who would have traveled there after being denied care in their home states.”

“Once again, we see that a state’s abortion policies affect thousands of people beyond that state’s borders,” Baden said.

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