WASHINGTON – On the surface, little appears to have changed in the post-Dobbs landscape in Arizona.

Four years after the landmark Supreme Court ruling wiped away nearly a half-century of abortion rights nationwide, the number of abortions in Arizona has returned to previous levels.

About 17,600 pregnancies were terminated in the state last year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive health. That’s up from 13,910 in 2023, the first full year after the Dobbs ruling.

The nationwide total is up more than 20% from before Dobbs came down, thanks in part to the spread of telehealth services in response to restrictions in many states. That’s a major disappointment to activists who’d spent decades working to overturn Roe v. Wade.

For advocates of abortion rights, the continued demand affirms their efforts to fight legal restrictions and protect access.

“I can understand how frightening and how scary it is for a young woman to have that kind of a decision … but it is her choice, and it should be her voice being heard, not the voices of politicians or religious leaders,” said Sylvia Andresh, a Tucson resident and Air Force veteran.

She recounted her own abortion in the 1970s at a Planned Parenthood clinic in California.

Andresh joined more than 150 other abortion rights advocates from around the country in Washington this week to meet with lawmakers about the impact of the Dobbs ruling, handed down on June 24, 2022.

At the American Life League, a Catholic group, national director Katie Xavios said the end of Roe is “a good thing but unfortunately, four years later, we're seeing abortion numbers actually higher now than they were before Roe vs. Wade was overturned.”

Nationwide, Guttmacher estimates 1,126,000 abortions in 2025, about 2,000 more than in 2024 and 21% more than in 2020, the last year for which it compiled comprehensive data before Dobbs.

State data differs somewhat from Guttmacher’s, but the trend is the same. An annual report issued Dec. 31 by the Arizona Department of Health Services showed that Arizona residents obtained 11,407 abortions in 2022, 12,705 in 2023 and 12,682 in 2024.

In response to the Dobbs ruling, a coalition of abortion rights supporters succeeded in putting Proposition 139 on the Arizona ballot. Voters approved the measure in November 2024, enshrining in the state Constitution the right to have an abortion through fetal viability – around 22 to 26 weeks gestation.

That extended the legal window from 15 weeks, the cap under a law that took effect when Dobbs returned regulation of abortion to the states.

After Dobbs, the number of abortions performed annually in Arizona dropped by 18%. Many patients were forced to travel out of state to California and New Mexico, where the procedure was more readily available.

Thirteen states have near-total bans. Four impose a cutoff at six weeks, which is sooner than many women realize they are pregnant. 

Thanks to Proposition 139, Arizona has now become something of a magnet for women seeking abortion who live elsewhere.

“We see plenty of patients who are coming from more restricted places like Texas, like Florida, like Idaho,” said Kelley Dupps, director of communications at Planned Parenthood Arizona. 

In those and other states, he added, “that care is just so limited that Arizona is a viable option for many patients.”

Arizona has nine clinics that provide abortions.

Although Proposition 139 locked in the right to abortion, GOP lawmakers have sought further restrictions.

Earlier this year, the Arizona House approved bills to criminalize the sale or purchase of mifepristone, the drug used in most abortions, or any other abortion-inducing drug; and to bar student health centers from providing information about abortions or referrals to clinics. Both bills died in the state Senate.

“That's part of the Republican platform, to be anti-choice,” Dupps said.

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.