How Many Weeks Pregnant Can You Get an Abortion?

How many weeks pregnant you can be and still get an abortion depends on the state you’re in. Thirteen states ban the procedure at all stages of pregnancy, seven more cut it off somewhere between six and twelve weeks, and the rest allow it until fetal viability (around 24 weeks) or set no gestational limit at all.¹ Medication abortion has its own ceiling everywhere in the country: the FDA-approved regimen stops at ten weeks.²

How Weeks Are Counted

The number of weeks doctors and state laws use isn’t counted from conception. The clock starts on the first day of your last menstrual period. Since ovulation and conception happen roughly two weeks into a cycle, you’re considered “two weeks pregnant” before an egg is ever fertilized. That’s why a six-week ban leaves only about four weeks after a missed period to notice the pregnancy, confirm it, and get an appointment.

Gestational age is confirmed by ultrasound, which the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists considers the most accurate dating method during the first trimester, accurate to within five to seven days.³ Dating gets less precise as pregnancy progresses, so if you’re near a legal cutoff, an early ultrasound is what determines whether you’re inside or outside the window. If your cycles are irregular, or you aren’t sure when your last period started, the ultrasound estimate is more reliable than your own count.

What Your State Allows

Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, there is no federal constitutional right to abortion, and each state sets its own gestational rule.⁴ State rules fall into four broad categories.

Thirteen states prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with narrow exceptions.
Seven states allow it only during the first six to twelve weeks. Five of those draw the line at six weeks, before many people know they’re pregnant.
Several states permit abortion until fetal viability, generally estimated at around 24 weeks. Viability depends on fetal weight and available medical technology, so the exact point varies.
A handful of states impose no statutory gestational cutoff.

These categories are not stable. Ballot initiatives, court rulings, and new legislation can move a state from one column to another in a single session. Before you make plans, confirm your state’s current status through your state health department or a nonpartisan policy tracker.¹

The Ten-Week Cap on the Abortion Pill

Medication abortion has a hard gestational ceiling set by federal regulators, not state legislatures. The approved regimen uses two drugs, mifepristone followed by misoprostol, and the FDA approved it through ten weeks of pregnancy (70 days from the first day of your last menstrual period).² Even in a state with no gestational limit for procedures, the pills stop at ten weeks. Past that point, you need a procedural abortion.

The FDA no longer requires mifepristone to be dispensed in person, and certified prescribers and pharmacies can mail it. Nine states have laws explicitly blocking telehealth prescribing of abortion medication or prohibiting the pills from being mailed, and most of those states already have total or near-total bans on abortion.⁵ The Department of Justice has issued a legal opinion concluding that federal law does not prohibit mailing abortion medication when the sender lacks intent for unlawful use.⁶

Clinicians in states with “shield laws” now prescribe and mail medication abortion pills to patients in states where the procedure is restricted. As of mid-2025, more than one in seven abortions in the U.S. were medication abortions mailed from providers in shield-law states to patients in states with bans or restrictions.⁵ The legal risk in these arrangements falls primarily on providers rather than patients, though the legal landscape is still evolving.

Exceptions After a Cutoff

If you’re past your state’s gestational limit, or in a state with a total ban, exceptions exist but are narrow.

Life of the Pregnant Person

Every state ban includes an exception when the procedure is necessary to prevent the patient’s death. In practice, the statutes rarely define how imminent the threat must be, and hospitals and physicians in ban states have reported turning patients away or waiting for their condition to deteriorate before intervening.⁷

Rape, Incest, and Fetal Anomalies

Most states with abortion bans do not include exceptions for rape or incest.⁷ The states that do allow them often attach requirements like filing a police report within a specified time frame. Several ban states include a separate exception for lethal fetal anomalies, conditions in which the fetus would not survive birth or would die shortly after. Nonlethal anomalies, even severe ones, generally do not qualify.

Emergency Care Under EMTALA

A federal law called EMTALA (the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act) requires any hospital that accepts Medicare funding to provide stabilizing treatment when a patient arrives with an emergency medical condition.⁸ When stabilizing an emergency requires an abortion, EMTALA can conflict with state bans that only allow abortion to prevent death.

Whether EMTALA overrides a state ban is unresolved. The Supreme Court took up the issue in 2024 but dismissed the case without ruling on the merits and sent it back to a lower court.⁹ A separate federal appeals court has ruled that one state’s strict ban prevails over EMTALA obligations. For now, the answer depends on which federal circuit you’re in.

Requirements That Shorten Your Window

The gestational limit isn’t the only clock. Several state requirements can eat into the time you actually have.

Twenty-two states require a waiting period between an initial counseling session and the procedure, ranging from 18 to 72 hours. In 13 of those states, the counseling must happen in person, meaning two separate clinic visits.¹⁰ If you live far from a clinic, that can mean arranging travel, lodging, and time off work twice. Near a gestational cutoff, the waiting period alone can push you past the legal window.

The majority of states require some form of parental involvement before a minor can obtain an abortion. Some require one parent to consent, others require both parents to be notified, and some require both. Nearly all these states include a judicial bypass procedure that lets a minor petition a court for permission without a parent. A minor who is found mature and well-informed, or for whom parental involvement would not serve their best interest, can be granted a bypass. Courts typically have a few business days to rule, though in practice it can take longer.

Several states also require an ultrasound before an abortion, and some require the provider to display the image and describe it, though patients can usually avert their eyes or decline to listen. This is separate from the diagnostic ultrasound used to confirm gestational age. Where an ultrasound mandate stacks on top of a waiting period, the combined delay adds up.

If Your State’s Window Has Closed

Traveling to a state where the procedure is legal is the most common option when it isn’t available where you live. More than 20 states and Washington, D.C. have enacted shield laws designed to protect providers, patients, and people who help them from out-of-state investigations or prosecution. Those protections can include refusing to comply with another state’s subpoenas, blocking extradition requests for providers, and barring state agencies from cooperating with out-of-state abortion-related investigations. Nine states have expanded their shield laws to cover providers who deliver care via telehealth to patients in other states.⁵

Call the destination clinic before you travel. Appointment availability, documentation requirements, and local waiting-period rules all vary, and clinics in border areas often have long wait times because they’re absorbing patients from neighboring ban states. The earlier you call, the better your odds of getting an appointment inside your gestational window.

1
KFF. Abortion in the United States Dashboard
2
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Questions and Answers on Mifepristone for Medical Termination of Pregnancy Through Ten Weeks Gestation
3
ACOG. Management of Suboptimally Dated Pregnancies
4
Cornell Law Institute. Dobbs v Jackson Womens Health Organization (2022)
5
KFF. The Intersection of State and Federal Policies on Access to Medication Abortion via Telehealth After Dobbs
6
United States Department of Justice. Application of the Comstock Act to the Mailing of Prescription Drugs That Can Be Used for Abortions
7
KFF. A Review of Exceptions in State Abortion Bans – Implications for the Provision of Abortion Services
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1395dd – Examination and Treatment for Emergency Medical Conditions and Women in Labor
9
Supreme Court of the United States. Moyle v United States (June 27, 2024)
10
Guttmacher Institute. Counseling and Waiting Period Requirements for Abortion