If you have been reading my work for a while, you already know that I am an abortion abolitionist, which means that I support equal protection under the law for preborn babies. Put another way, I believe that the same laws that protect you and me (born people) from murder ought to protect preborn people from murder.

As such, I have put in a lot of work with my friends and co-laborers to bring about laws of equal protection in Texas and elsewhere. Alas, we still have a lot of work to do. No state treats abortion like murder (yet), and every state refuses to enact laws that would include the prosecution of women for abortions.

The predictable result is that abortion remains legal and prevalent, even in the 14 states that are reported to have a “complete abortion ban.”

Texas is no exception to these shortcomings. Despite the US Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022, which activated the Texas Abortion Trigger Ban, there are likely over 60,000 abortions amongst Texas women annually – an increase since the Dobbs ruling.

This sickening number wasn’t pulled out of thin air. I synthesized it based on data meticulously collected and analyzed from Texas Health and Human Services, the US Census Bureau, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP), The Guttmacher Institute, and the New York Times.

But rather than expounding on our current circumstances, and how those are measured, I would like to discuss how we got here. After all, pro-life organizations have been working hard for years, and have celebrated some seemingly massive wins in that time. Why, after all that struggle and reported victory do things seem to be worse than they were before?

I’ll tell you.

Our story starts in March 2020, during the outset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Texas. As you may recall, there was a lot of talk about essential and non-essential businesses, employees, and activities. Governor Greg Abbott issued Executive Order GA 09, which ordered all licensed health care professionals and facilities to postpone all surgeries and procedures that were not “immediately medically necessary” starting March 22, 2020 and ending April 21, 2020. While the Executive Order did not explicitly name abortions or abortion facilities, Attorney General Ken Paxton provided a statement clarifying that the order did include both.

In January 2021 JAMA released a report that discussed the impact of Abbott’s Executive order. The report indicated that during the 30-day period some abortion facilities stopped offering abortions, while some continued to do so. This resulted in a decrease of around 1,900 abortions in that time period in facilities in Texas.

If we just stopped there this already looks like a fantastic win for life. Having spent countless hours standing in front of abortion facilities in the heat and cold, the sun and the rain, I was happy to get one turn-away on any given day. 1,900 in 30-days would be an overwhelming victory.

But, the report did not stop there. In and around the 30-day period the number of women who traveled out-of-Texas to procure abortions increased by roughly 1,000. At the same time the number of women ordering abortion pills online from abortion pill provider Aid Access increased by about 900. This effectively erased any positive impact of the 30-day moratorium. Aid Access is part of an international operation that sends abortion pills (mifepristone and misoprostol) to pregnant women seeking abortions, regardless of what restrictions may exist in their respective jurisdictions.

The number of abortions did not change. Only the how and the where.

Incidentally, January 2021 is also when the Texas 87th Regular Legislative Session began (they meet once every-other-year from January to May).

The 87th was a monumental session for the pro-life movement in Texas. The legislature passed both the Texas Heartbeat Act (SB8), and the Texas Abortion Trigger Ban (HB1280). During that session there was also a bill that would have abolished abortion in Texas by providing equal protection for the preborn (HB3326), but it was opposed by pro life groups, and killed in committee without a hearing by Speaker Dade Phelan Lieutenant Stephanie Klick, so it never saw the light of day, and received very little media attention.

The Heartbeat Act was a unique piece of legislation that allowed private citizens to sue medical professionals who performed an abortion on a woman who was known to be pregnant with a baby for whom cardiac activity (aka a heartbeat) had been detected. In other words, if an abortionist conducted an abortion on a baby with a heartbeat, he could be sued by any random individual.

The law did not create criminal penalties for any party, and specifically precluded civil and criminal penalties for the mother.

Note: The data discussed in the next few paragraphs was collected from the Texas Health and Human Services (HHS) Induced Termination of Pregnancy (ITOP) Statistics Page.

When the Heartbeat Act was passed in May 2021 some speculated that it would act as a virtual ban, prohibiting 90% or more of Texas abortions. When the bill went into effect on September 1, 2021 there was a noticeable drop in abortions at Texas facilities. The January-August average was 5,143 abortions per month, while the September-December average was 2,409 per month, nearly a 53% decrease. Some percentage of the decrease can be attributed to higher abortion numbers in the months leading up to the bill’s enactment. For instance, in August 2021 there were 5,706 abortions in Texas facilities as compared to just 4,394 in August 2020, representing a massive increase of 1,312 or 30%. This was likely due to the realization that starting in September it would become more difficult and less convenient to get an abortion, and so both the facilities and women considering abortions were eager to get them scheduled prior.

Due in part to these increases in the months leading up to September 2021, the difference between the overall 2021 numbers from 2020 numbers was not that significant. In 2020 there were 53,949 abortions in Texas facilities amongst Texas women. In 2021 there were 50,783, a decrease of 3,166 or 5.87%.

Other Abortion Abolitionists and I opposed both the Heartbeat Act and the Trigger Ban based on the fact that they would not provide equal justice for the preborn, that they delayed justice by providing an alternative to abolishing abortion, and also because we knew they would not work as well as advertised. Nevertheless, when I saw the initial reporting on the decrease in abortions I was celebratory. Though I disagreed with the methodology, I would have been glad to see a decrease of 3,166 abortions in our state.

Celebration, however, was short-lived.

Once again, the data told a different story.

In February 2022 JAMA produced a report about the abortion pill orders from Texas women in the months following the implementation of the Heartbeat Act. This report indicated that From September 1 to December 31, 2021 the monthly average requests for abortion pills by Texas Women from Aid Access jumped 251% from 324 to 1,136.

In March 2022 the Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP) reported that in the same time period the number of Texas women traveling out-of-state for abortions also jumped dramatically from 129 per month to 1,391 per month (a 978% increase). Notably, the report only considered abortion facilities across seven states (New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi) and only counted abortions in 34 out the 44 facilities open in those states, indicating the reported numbers were almost certainly very low.

Furthermore, the number of abortion pills ordered online was also likely low. The only numbers I was able to find for that time period were from Aid Access as reported by JAMA, but I knew that there were at least six other online providers, and I had no idea how many pills they were sending (though I knew Aid Access was likely the biggest).

It would be quite reasonable to adjust these numbers upwards significantly, but I prefer to be conservative in my estimates.

Combined, we’re looking at an average of 2,074 more abortions per month than were accounted for in the HHS ITOP numbers for 2021, which would bring the 2021 total to 59,079. This constitutes an increase of 5,130 total annual abortions from 2020 to 2021 or 9.51%.

To put it quite bluntly, the Texas Heartbeat Act was an utter failure. Even when viewing the numbers through the most conservative lens we can see that abortions amongst Texas women increased significantly despite the heartbeat act. The bill had the effect of increasing the perceived scarcity of abortions such that their demand actually increased while doing nothing to teach the women that they themselves were actually doing anything wrong.

This is not to brag, but I wish to foster further credibility: In September 2021, prior to the release of the aforementioned JAMA report and TxPEP report I actually wrote that there was likely no reduction in abortions as a result of the Heartbeat Act.

You might be surprised to hear this, but history repeats itself. Over. And over. And over.

In December 2021 the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) heard oral arguments in the now-famous Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. At the time no one except God knew for certain what the results would be, but people began to speculate that SCOTUS decision might even result in the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

For whatever reason, I felt optimistic that the overturn of Roe was probable, but at the same time I did not believe that the court would go as far as providing equal protection for the preborn. I knew that if Roe were simply overturned (without equal protection) that we would continue to face the same problems we were already experiencing after the Heartbeat Act. After all, if 50% of women seeking abortions could simply do it outside of Texas facilities, couldn’t 100% do it? I watched and waited with the rest of America until the decision was leaked on May 2.

And on June 24, 2022 SCOTUS issued its landmark decision, overturning Roe v. Wade.

The Texas Abortion Trigger Ban went into effect, and within 30 days it became a felony to conduct an abortion in Texas.

But it didn’t become a felony for everyone. Section 170A.003 of the law says, “This chapter may not be construed to authorize the imposition of criminal, civil, or administrative liability or penalties on a pregnant female on whom an abortion is performed, induced, or attempted.”

In other words, the woman who has the abortion incurs no legal liability. She cannot be arrested, charged, or sued for having an abortion. That is true whether someone conducts an abortion on her, or if she conducts the abortion herself.

At this point you hopefully see the problem. Thousands of Texas women were already getting abortions by traveling out-of-state and ordering pills online. All this new law would do is ensure that the 50% of women who still got abortions in Texas facilities would have to switch to the remaining available methods.

And that’s exactly what happened.

By July 2022 all the abortion facilities in Texas had ceased to offer abortions. Pro-life groups, which had still not acknowledged or accepted that the Heartbeat Act had failed were now celebrating something much bigger, the overturn of Roe and resulting “ban” of abortion in Texas. To this day there are many who still speak about abortion in Texas as if it were no longer happening.

But the SCOTUS Dobbs decision did not end abortion in our nation, and no state law, including the Texas law, have ended it either.

For the second half of 2022 I knew that abortions were still occurring, but once again I was waiting for the data to corroborate that belief. In the meantime, I was ready to stand by my predictions, and so I wrote them down in this post on July 21, 2022, explaining that abortion was still legal in all 50 states, and that it would continue at scale in all of them.

Finally, in November 2022 JAMA produced yet another article about abortion pill orders, this time looking at 30 US states, and comparing numbers from before and after Dobbs.

In February 2023 I produced a 12-page report in which I unpacked the JAMA data and used it to calculate an estimate for the number of pills being ordered amongst Texas women in the 12-months after Dobbs. The results were stunning. The pill orders had risen significantly in keeping with the rise in demand to around 1,605 orders per month, or 19,260 per year from Aid Access alone. Once again, I knew that there were other pill providers, but I still did not know how many other pills they might be providing. In the absence of any hard data on that topic, I opted to maintain the conservative number of 19,260 annually.

At the same time, I did have earlier data on women traveling out-of-state from previous TxPEP and JAMA reporting, and I was able to use some careful math to calculate a likely estimate for the number of Texas women traveling out-of-state each year. The number I arrived at was 2,743 per month or 32,916 annually.

Put together we were looking at 52,716 abortions amongst Texas women annually.

I cannot emphasize enough how conservative I believed these figures to be. I was certain that many more pills were coming in from other sources, and I knew the out-of-state numbers were based on the TxPEP study that had not included a massive percentage of possible abortion facilities. But, once again, I believed that to remain credible I should keep my numbers tied to hard data, and remain conservative.

However, in April 2023 the New York Times finally reported on abortion pill online orders and provided me with some of the information I was seeking. They reported that Aid Access only provided 46% of the market’s abortion pills in the months after Dobbs.

Furthermore, in the same month NBC reported more than an 18% jump in the number of abortion pill orders in the months after the JAMA reporting period. All available information indicates that these trends are on an upward trajectory.

At the end of the end of the day, the numbers I have produced are all estimates based on available data. I can’t say I know the exact number for sure (and neither can anyone else), but we can make educated guesses based on the available information. With the information that came out in April 2023 it is reasonable to suggest that Texas abortion pill numbers were as high as 25,000 or even 30,000 in 2023 as opposed to just under 20,000. The fact is, we may never know exactly.

And still the data continues to come in.

In June 2024 I finally got to see updated data on out-of-state travel, as Guttmacher produced a comprehensive, national report on the subject. They looked at the number of women traveling out-of-state from every state, and reported on their destinations as well.

Due to the high level of the study, they did not report numbers from states where less than 100 women from a given state traveled. The study provided numbers from 19 states to which Texas women traveled for abortions in 2023. The top five states included New Mexico (14,200), Kansas (6,720), Colorado (4,400), California (3,580), and Illinois (1,570). The total for all states included in the study was 35,190.

You may recall the estimate that I produced in February 2023 for the number of Texas women who traveled out-of-state for abortions. It was 32,916. The Guttmacher estimate provides at least some evidence that my earlier estimate was both accurate and conservative, and if we take the Guttmacher estimate at face-value, and combine it with the still-conservative mail-order estimate of 25,000, we’re looking at 60,000 abortions amongst Texas women annually.

Recall when we are talking about here: After the Texas Heartbeat Act. After the Dobbs decision overturned Roe. After the Texas Abortion Trigger Ban.

Each of these events constitute some of the hardest hitting pro-life victories in over half a century, and yet none of them have had any discernable, positive impact on abortion numbers in Texas.

What about elsewhere? Sadly, the same pattern appears to be true everywhere. While I haven’t had time to do the same level of deep-dive in many other states as I have in Texas, I did look closely at Arkansas. The data indicates that in 2023 at least 4,211 Arkansas women received abortions, the highest amount on record in over a decade.

Abortion is prevalent across the US, and the truth is, is is legal in every state. The pro-life movement has undermined itself at every turn. It is utterly committed to the second victim narrative, the idea that women are the “second victims” of abortion, and should therefore never be prosecuted because “they have been lied to” and because “abortion is punishment enough.” They are afraid of “losing ground” by taking a position that is “too extreme” or that “people aren’t ready for yet.”

So fearful are they of “losing ground” that National Right to Life penned a letter calling to decrease the existing restrictions on abortion in Oklahoma. Quite literally, the preeminent US pro-life organization is advocating for pro-choice policy.

That’s not all that National Right to Life has done. In May 2022 the Louisiana House of Representatives was considering a bill that would have abolished abortion (HB 813), and more than considering it, they were planning to vote on it, and it was likely to pass.

When National Right to Life and the rest of the pro-life movement heard about it, they wrote a letter to all US state lawmakers, but with Louisiana lawmakers specifically in-mind, calling on them to oppose any law that would provide any level of prosecution for mothers who get abortions. They actively, explicitly opposed equal protection under the law for the preborn. It was signed by a total of 77 pro-life groups notably including National Right to Life, Americans United for Life, Susan B. Anthony List, March for Life Action, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), and the Pro-Life Action League.

The letter was circulated amongst the Louisiana lawmakers, and the vote failed. Abortion remained legal, and is still legal to this day in Louisiana. Women are still killing their preborn babies with impunity today because the pro-life movement stood in opposition to justice.

If you’re learning about the compromises of the pro-life movement for the first time you’re probably shocked, and maybe even hesitant to believe what I’m telling you here. I wish it weren’t true, but I’ve personally watched the pro-life movement reject equal protection in favor of weak compromise for years.

My hope for you, dear reader, is that you read what I’m saying, do the research to see if it’s true, and that you become an active abolitionist now. I hope you start telling your friends and family about this both online and in-person. I hope you get involved in your local, state, and national party, and start calling your respective representatives. I hope you get plugged in with your local abolitionist group and begin taking trips to the state Capitol, where you leave no stone unturned in your advocacy for the preborn.

But if what I’m saying is too much, and you simply cannot find it in you to believe that the pro-life movement has betrayed the preborn to the extent that I’ve stated, then I would just ask that you do this: Just watch. Get plugged in with what’s going on, and keep up with bills of abolition and pro-life bills. Look at who supports the bills of abolition, and who opposes them. Look at the pro-life laws that get passed, and then look at the results that come out within a year or two. I believe you will see the patterns I’ve laid out. You’ll confirm with your own eyes and ears that what I’m saying is true.

Every year that passes without equal protection is another year of genocide for the preborn. The numbers are already terrifying. Over 65 million across the US since 1973. 4 million in Texas alone. Global estimates vary dramatically, but are likely well over 1 billion.

Don’t sit on your laurels. Don’t wait for someone else to fix this. The “someone else” you’re thinking of is probably a pro-life leader who is actually working against abolition. Will you stand up for your preborn neighbor? Will you stand up and fight? Will you be a voice for the voiceless? Remember and meditate on these words from Proverbs 24:12:

If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”
    does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,
    and will he not repay man according to his work?