More patients in the United States are turning to telehealth for abortion care, according to new figures released by The Society of Family Planning (SFP) on Tuesday, Dec. 9.
From January to June 2025, 27% of abortions nationwide were provided via telehealth, the SFP reports. That’s up from 25% at the end of 2024 and just 5% in spring 2022, shortly before Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022.
“Telehealth abortions provided to people living in states with total bans increased substantially in the first six months of 2025,” the report notes.
The SFP now estimates that nearly 15,000 abortions per month were provided between January and June 2025. The findings underscore the growing role of telehealth providers in maintaining access to reproductive care — including for patients in states where abortion is restricted or prohibited.
“Telehealth has become a lifeline for people accessing abortion care, especially those in states with abortion bans,” Dr. Ushma Upadhyay said in a statement, per ABC News. Upadhyay is the Society of Family Planning #WeCount co-chair and a professor at the University of California, San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health.
Telehealth appointments are allowed under shield laws in several states. These laws prevent medical providers from being prosecuted for prescribing and providing access to abortion medications, commonly known as mifepristone or misoprostol, according to ABC News.
Shield laws are described in the SFP report as “legal protections put in place by some states to reduce legal risk for clinicians who offer abortions to patients in states where abortion is prohibited or severely restricted.”
The SFP began tracking the number of abortions completed in the U.S. — broken down by month and state — in April 2022, shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
As of December, 13 states have total abortion bans in place, and 28 have abortion bans based on gestational duration, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
