More women facing restrictions seek abortions in other states

ATLANTA— Thousands of women in the U.S. have crossed state lines for an abortion in recent years as states have passed ever stricter laws and the number of clinics has declined.

Although abortion opponents say the laws are intended to reduce abortions and not send people to other states, at least 276,000 women terminated their pregnancies outside their home state between 2012 and 2017, according to an Associated Press analysis of data collected from state reports and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In New Mexico, the number of women from out of state who had abortions more than doubled in that period, while Missouri women received nearly half the abortions performed in neighboring Kansas.

While abortions across the U.S. are down, the share of women who had abortions out of state rose slightly, by half a percentage point, and certain states had notable increases over the sixyear period, according to AP's analysis.

In pocket soft he Midwest, South and Mountain West, the number of women terminating a pregnancy in another state rose considerably, particularly where a lack of clinics means the closest provider is in another state or where less restrictive policies in a neighboring state make it easier and quicker to terminate a pregnancy there.

Thirteen states saw a rise in the number of outof-state women having abortions between 2012 and 2017, according to the analysis of data from 41 states. Counts from nine states, including highly populated California and Florida, and the District Columbia were not included either because they were not collected or reported across the full six- year period.

New Mexico's s hare of abortions performed on women from out of state more than doubled from 11% to roughly 25%. One likely reason is that a clinic in Albuquerque is one of only a few independent facilities in the country t hat performs abortions close to the third trimester without conditions.

In Illinois, the percent age of abortions performed on non-residents more than doubled to 16.5% of all reported abortions in 2017. That is being driven in large part by women from Missouri, one of six states with only a single abortion provider.