Are abortion numbers rising in the US?
More or Less: Behind the Stats
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 August 2025
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
In June 2022 the United States Supreme Court passed what became known as ‘the Dobbs decision’. In doing so they overturned the long standing constitutional right for women to access abortion in the US. Since then a number of states have banned abortion completely with many others having highly prohibitive rules. You’d expect the numbers of abortions to go down. They haven’t. How is it possible that more people are accessing abortions in a post Dobbs society and why is it not true that states which have total bans have zero abortions per year? Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Production Co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Studio Manager: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon, Bridget Harney.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and thank you for downloading the more or less podcast. |
| 0:03.3 | We're the program that looks at the numbers in the news and in life, and I'm Lizzie McNeil. |
| 0:09.4 | Good evening, in a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court today legalized abortions. |
| 0:15.0 | The United States, 1973. Two women successfully took on laws that criminalized abortion. |
| 0:20.9 | In effect, the court makes abortion subject only to the decision of the pregnant woman's doctor. |
| 0:26.8 | The subsequent law case and ruling, Roe v. Wade, enshrined in the American Constitution a woman's legal right to access abortion. |
| 0:35.7 | But then... |
| 0:36.7 | Ill legitimate! Rise up! Why? right to access abortion. But then, ALA gentlemen! |
| 0:38.3 | Wise up! |
| 0:40.3 | Almost 50 years later, the Supreme Court passed the Dobbs decision, overruling Roe versus Wade. |
| 0:47.3 | The right was no longer protected. |
| 0:50.3 | Currently, 12 states ban abortion under almost any circumstances and four states have highly |
| 0:55.7 | prohibitive rules. People administering or receiving abortions in these states face heavy penalties. |
| 1:02.5 | So, in big areas of the USA, abortion is now banned, which you would imagine would lead to a big |
| 1:09.2 | drop in the number of abortions. |
| 1:12.0 | But actually, the number of abortions carried out in the US has increased. |
| 1:18.3 | So what is going on? |
| 1:21.5 | One confused listener, Ben Crichton, asked us to look into the data behind the headlines. |
| 1:30.5 | After Roe versus Wade in the early 70s, |
| 1:33.3 | unsurprisingly, the number of abortions went up in the US. |
| 1:37.9 | My name is Isaac Maddo Zimmett, and I'm a data scientist at the Gutmacher Institute. |
| 1:41.8 | The Goetzmacher Institute is a research and policy organization whose aim is the advancement of sexual and reproductive |
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