Mail-order abortion pills prescribed online — which the Supreme Court said Thursday could continuefor now — have become a major way that women in the United States get abortions, including in states where abortion is banned.
Telehealth abortions made up 28 percent of abortions in December 2025, the most recent month with available data, according to preliminary data from the abortion tracking project WeCount.
Not all prescriptions necessarily result in abortions, as some women might change their mind or get an abortion another way. Still, if the Supreme Court had ruled differently, it could have severely curtailed the number of legal abortions nationwide, and especially in states with bans. The growth of telehealth abortions is a key reason the total number of abortions in the United States has paradoxically increased since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“What these results show is that telehealth abortion has become a cornerstone of abortion access in the United States,” said Leah Koenig, the director of WeCount, which is part of the Society of Family Planning, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
Before 2021, nearly all abortions took place in person, in a clinic. Women either had a procedure or were given pills by a clinician during an in-person visit. But that has rapidly changed.
During the pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration first made it legal for clinicians to prescribe abortion pills online. Since the court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ended the nationwide right to abortion, the share of abortions happening this way has grown significantly.
Clinicians in states where abortion is legal are prescribing many of these pills to women living in states with bans. These providers are protected by shield laws written by their home states.
Political leaders in states with abortion bans say that the mailing of pills across state lines undermines their local abortion restrictions. Last year, Texas lost a lawsuit it had brought against New York authorities for allowing the practice.
This month, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted Louisiana’s request to rescind the F.D.A.’s rules allowing clinicians to prescribe mail-order abortion pills online. The Supreme Court on Thursday granted abortion pill makers’ emergency appeal, allowing telehealth to continue as the case makes its way through the courts.
Louisiana banned abortion pills because “they intentionally destroy life in the womb,” said Erica Inzina, policy director for Louisiana Right to Life. By mailing pills into the state, she said, “it undermines the rule of law which our society relies on to function.”
Telehealth abortions have also become common in states where abortion remains legal, as they can be a more convenient or private option than a clinic appointment. For now, that can continue.
Margot Sanger-Katz is a reporter covering health care policy and public health for the Upshot section of The Times.
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