It's been about three years since the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in the Dobbs case, which overturned Roe v Wade and allowed states to regulate access to abortions. But since then, abortion numbers have actually risen across the country.
However, that isn't the case in Florida, where last year a six-week abortion ban went into effect.
The "heartbeat bill" was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023, shortly after a 15-week ban had been previously signed into law.
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Between 2023 and 2024, Florida abortions fell by 20,000 cases, according to data from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. In that same time period, national abortion totals increased by 86,000 terminations, according to the Society of Family Planning's "#WeCount" report.
The numbers also showed a drastic increase from 2022, which is when the U.S. Supreme Court made the Dobbs decision that eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion.
The national increase is a "blip on the radar," said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, a litigation group that advocates for evangelical Christian values. Staver said that the increase occurred after news about tighter abortion restrictions occurred, pushing people to make abortion decisions faster.
"I think that basically caused some more attention on abortion that I think will phase out as we move forward," he said.
He said Florida's Heartbeat Law has transformed the state from an abortion destination to a state that respects life.
"That's a paradigm that we would like to see around the country where life is respected," Staver said.
Staver and other like-minded pro-life activists want to use Florida as a template for the rest of the country.
However, not everyone thinks that the template is popular in Florida.
Last year, the Liberty Counsel campaigned against Amendment 4, which sought to codify abortion protections into Florida's constitution. To pass, the amendment needed 60% of the vote. It didn't secure it.
Note that the 2022 monthly average is less precise because it reflects only April to December of that year; we did not collect data in January to March, which, in subsequent years, had higher volume of abortions. In addition, these months were pre-Dobbs, before abortion bans were enacted.
"But it did secure 57% and so for individuals that brag about how, you know, restrictive care is in Florida, they are the minority, and they need to feel that way," said Democratic Florida House Representative Anna Eskamani, who campaigned for the amendment along with the group Floridians Protecting Freedom.
When comparing Florida's numbers versus the nation's, Eskamani said the data shows residents aren't having fewer abortions – they're just traveling elsewhere to get them.
"We're forcing women to go as far as Virginia or Illinois, or North Carolina for care. And of course, women are going to end pregnancies on their own," she said. There are women who are ordering abortion medication online, sometimes from mediums that are not always verifiable, and they could be criminalized for doing that."
This year, Florida abortion numbers are at 17,377, according to state records. That's a little less than half of the total from last year.
Still, Eskamani is hopeful that progress for women's healthcare can be made.
"I think it's really important to continue to focus on directly impacted people at the micro level, to support organizations like abortion funds, like Planned Parenthood, to be on the ground organizations who are navigating this storm to the best of their ability," she said.
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