Massachusetts saw a spike in the number of abortions conducted in the state last year.
The Bay State conducted 24,355 abortions last year, according to data from the Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records and Statistics obtained by NewBostonPost. That’s a 37.2 percent increase over the 17,757 abortions that happened in 2022.
Additionally, the number of late-term abortions more than doubled year over year. Massachusetts saw 84 abortions done at 24 weeks or later in 2023, up from 41 in 2022.
Out-of-states accounted for about one in four abortions (25.1 percent) conducted in Massachusetts (at least 6,115 out of 24,355).
Massachusetts Citizens for Life President Myrna Maloney Flynn criticized Governor Maura Healey’s administration for the uptick in abortions. Flynn said the administration should focus its attention on the migrant crisis, rather than promoting abortion.
“You’d think that Governor Healey and her administration would be focused on providing humane, long-term solutions for migrants and supporting communities across the state now charged with their care,” Flynn told NewBostonPost via email. “Instead, the latest abortion data proves that the governor places a higher value on luring out-of-state women to kill their children and permitting abortionists to sell dangerous drugs to women without ever examining them in person. Just as shocking are the 84 infants killed in late-term abortions throughout 2023 — more than double those killed in later pregnancy during 2022. As the election outcome demonstrated, Healey’s stance is far beyond what average Americans — or Massachusetts residents — seem to want.”
Some of the increase in abortions was likely driven by the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade in its June 2022 decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The high court determined by a 5-4 majority that Roe, which had been in place for 49 years, was unconstitutional. The court also determined that the court lacks the authority to unilaterally legalize elective abortion in every state, and that individual states have the authority to set their own abortion laws.
The court issued the Dobbs decision on June 24, 2022, so 2023 was the first full year where the decision was in effect.
Currently, 13 out of 50 states ban elective abortion, while another four states have heartbeat bills in place, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. Heartbeat bills bans abortion once an unborn baby’s heartbeat can be detected — around six weeks into a pregnancy.
Massachusetts did not report the number of out-of-staters who had abortions conducted in the state before 2023.
Planned Parenthood remains the state’s largest abortion provider, according to the data. Its three locations in Springfield, Worcester, and Boston conducted 8,355 abortions last year — 34.3 percent of the state’s total abortions. The state had 30 total abortion providers, including those three Planned Parenthood locations. That’s up from 29 in 2022. The latest additions were Tapestry Health Northampton and Wesson Women’s Clinic in Springfield, which conducted 38 and 49 abortions, respectively. Meanwhile, the state no longer lists Planned Parenthood’s Marlborough location as an abortion provider, though it did not provide any reported abortions in 2022, either.
The report also illustrated abortion funds’ role in paying for abortion for those who either lack health insurance or don’t have health insurance that covers abortion.
Women and their partners paid for at least 9,252 abortions out of pocket (at least 38 percent of these abortions). Yet, 3,856 abortions conducted in Massachusetts took place with at least some money from abortion funds — 41.7 percent of these abortions paid for out of pocket, according to the data. The data from 2022 did not show how many abortions used money from these abortion funds to help cover the cost.
The state is expected to release its 2024 abortion data during the fall of 2025.
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(Courtesy of Wikimedia) 
