In 2023, 63% of abortions were performed with abortion pills — an increase from 2020, when the figure was 53%, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
The number of total abortions reached a decade high; an estimated 1,026,690 abortions happened in 2023, a 10% increase from 2020.
Last year was the first calendar year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and as the justices prepare to discuss the future of mifepristone — one of the two abortion pills — almost every state without a total abortion ban noted an increase in abortions.
Between 2020 and 2023, states without total bans saw a 25% increase, and the biggest growth happened in states bordering ban states, the institute found, with abortions increasing by 37% in four years.
On March 26, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments about mifepristone, which is the first drug in a two-pill regimen the FDA approved in 2000. A monthslong lawsuit questioning the FDA's allowances for medication abortion to be mail-ordered and dispensed at pharmacies has climbed to the nation's highest court.