Roughly 63.5 million abortions have been performed in the United States since the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure nationwide. That figure comes from the National Right to Life Committee, which builds it from year-by-year counts published by the Guttmacher Institute and adds an adjustment for abortions the surveys are known to miss. No federal agency publishes an official running total, so any answer to how many abortions have occurred since 1973 is an estimate stitched together from annual data.
Where the 63 Million Figure Comes From
The National Right to Life Committee calculates the cumulative total using Guttmacher’s annual figures, with an upward adjustment for undercounting. For 1973 through 2014, NRLC adds 3% to each year, reflecting Guttmacher’s own acknowledgment that its counts may run 3–5% below actual totals because small providers can be missed in its surveys. For 2015 through 2021, NRLC adds a flat 12,000 abortions per year to account for providers identified as potentially missing from Guttmacher’s census.1National Right to Life Committee. Abortion in the United States Fact Sheet
Guttmacher itself does not publish a single cumulative number. It provides annual counts going back to 1973 through its periodic Abortion Provider Census and, more recently, its Monthly Abortion Provision Study. The full year-by-year dataset through 2020 is available in its report on pregnancies, births, and abortions.2Guttmacher Institute. Pregnancies, Births and Abortions in the United States, 1973–2020 Adding the annual figures for 2021 through 2025, which have run between roughly 930,000 and 1.13 million, brings the running total past 63 million.
Why the Counts Disagree
Two organizations have tracked U.S. abortion numbers for decades, and they produce different figures. The Guttmacher Institute surveys abortion-providing facilities directly across all 50 states, supplements with state health department data, and estimates the volume from providers that do not respond. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention runs the Abortion Surveillance System, which relies on voluntary reporting from state health agencies.
Not every state participates in the CDC system. California, Maryland, and New Hampshire have not reported for years, and New Jersey was excluded from the CDC’s most recent report covering 2022.3CDC. Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2022 Because California is the most populous state, its absence alone creates a large gap. The CDC reported 613,383 abortions in 2022 from 48 reporting areas.4CDC. Abortion Surveillance Findings and Reports Guttmacher’s totals run higher because its surveys cover every state.5KFF. Abortion Trends Before and After Dobbs The CDC itself relies on Guttmacher’s estimates as the denominator when calculating national case-fatality rates, because its own data is too incomplete.
A third source appeared after 2022: the Society of Family Planning’s #WeCount project, which tracks abortion volume from clinics, hospitals, and virtual providers on a faster timeline than either the CDC or Guttmacher’s traditional census. Its full-year 2025 estimate of 1,126,760 clinician-provided abortions aligns closely with Guttmacher’s figure for the same year.6Society of Family Planning. #WeCount Report April 2022 Through December 2025 Despite methodological differences, the three sources have shown similar long-term trends in abortion rates.5KFF. Abortion Trends Before and After Dobbs
The Trajectory from 1973 to 2025
Annual abortion numbers followed a distinct arc over the past half-century: a rapid rise in the 1970s, a peak around 1990, a long decline through the 2010s, and a recent rebound.
After Roe was decided on January 22, 1973, legal abortions became available nationwide for the first time. The abortion rate climbed through the late 1970s and peaked at 29 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 in 1980 and 1981.2Guttmacher Institute. Pregnancies, Births and Abortions in the United States, 1973–2020 The absolute annual count reached its all-time high around 1990, when Guttmacher recorded roughly 1,608,600 abortions and the CDC reported 1,429,580.7Pew Research Center. What the Data Says About Abortion in the U.S.
From there, numbers fell slowly but steadily for about three decades. By 2017, the rate had dropped to a historic low of 14 per 1,000 women, and the annual count had fallen to about 862,320 in Guttmacher’s data, roughly half the 1990 peak.7Pew Research Center. What the Data Says About Abortion in the U.S. Researchers attribute the long decline primarily to increased access to effective contraception and declining rates of unintended pregnancy.
The decline reversed in the late 2010s. Guttmacher reported an 8% increase between 2017 and 2020, bringing the annual total to 930,160.7Pew Research Center. What the Data Says About Abortion in the U.S. The upward trend continued through the Dobbs decision in June 2022, reaching about 1.06 million in 2023, 1.12 million in 2024, and an estimated 1.13 million in 2025.8Guttmacher Institute. Monthly Abortion Provision Study The 2025 figure is the highest annual total since 2009, though it remains well below the 1990 peak.9Guttmacher Institute. Full-Year 2025 Estimates Show Overall Stability in Abortion Incidence
Why the National Total Kept Rising After Dobbs
The Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overruled Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, returning authority over abortion regulation to individual states.10Supreme Court of the United States. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization As of early 2026, 13 states have total or near-total bans, and seven more restrict abortion to the first six to twelve weeks of pregnancy.11KFF. Abortion in the U.S. Dashboard Many observers expected the national count to drop. It did not.
Several forces pushed the total up. Medication abortion, using mifepristone and misoprostol, accounted for 65% of clinician-provided abortions in 2023, up from 53% in 2020. Virtual-only clinics provided 24% of all abortions in 2025, up from 12% two years earlier.12Guttmacher Institute. Induced Abortion in the United States Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have enacted shield laws protecting clinicians who provide abortion care, including telemedicine prescriptions, to patients in ban states. By December 2025, nearly 15,000 abortions per month were provided under these laws.6Society of Family Planning. #WeCount Report April 2022 Through December 2025 Interstate travel for abortion care rose from 81,000 in 2020 to about 170,000 in 2023 before easing to roughly 142,000 in 2025 as telehealth expanded. In ban states specifically, about 91,000 patients received abortions via telehealth in 2025, up from about 72,000 the year before.9Guttmacher Institute. Full-Year 2025 Estimates Show Overall Stability in Abortion Incidence
What the Official Counts Miss
Guttmacher, the CDC, and #WeCount all exclude self-managed abortions from their counts. These are abortions performed using pills obtained outside the formal healthcare system, through international online pharmacies, community volunteer networks, or other informal channels. Researchers acknowledge that this category has grown since Dobbs.12Guttmacher Institute. Induced Abortion in the United States
A 2024 JAMA study found that in the six months after Dobbs, self-managed abortions increased by roughly 26,000 cases. Online orders for abortion pills rose 322% compared to pre-Dobbs levels, reaching an average of about 5,900 per month.13Louisiana Illuminator. Self-Managed Abortions Research from ANSIRH found that the share of American women who have ever attempted to end a pregnancy without medical assistance rose from about 5% before Dobbs to 7% afterward.14ANSIRH. New Research Shows Self-Managed Abortion Increased in Aftermath of Dobbs Decision Guttmacher has stated plainly that there are “no comprehensive data on the number of self-managed medication abortions in the United States.”15Guttmacher Institute. Medication Abortion Accounted for 63% of All US Abortions in 2023 Guttmacher’s counts also exclude advance-provision prescriptions (pills obtained before a pregnancy exists) and abortions performed under limited exceptions to state bans.9Guttmacher Institute. Full-Year 2025 Estimates Show Overall Stability in Abortion Incidence The true total sits somewhat higher than any published figure.
Why 1973 Is the Starting Line
Abortions occurred before 1973, but they could not be reliably counted. Abortion was illegal in most states before Roe, and estimates of annual illegal abortions during the 1950s and 1960s ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year.16Guttmacher Institute. Lessons From Before Roe: Will Past Be Prologue Any pre-Roe figure added to the cumulative count would carry that uncertainty. Legal reform was already underway before the Supreme Court acted: by 1973, legal abortion was available in 17 states, and four (Alaska, Hawaii, New York, and Washington) had fully repealed their bans.17Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Magazine. A Brief History of Abortion in the U.S. The CDC and Guttmacher began systematic national data collection in 1973 and 1974, which is when the year-by-year record used to build the cumulative total begins.7Pew Research Center. What the Data Says About Abortion in the U.S.