DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado abortion providers could see bumps in out-of-state women seeking abortion access after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The number of non-resident abortions has been rising in the last two years, and Friday’s SCOTUS will automatically trigger abortion bans in several nearby states. Several of those states already send large numbers of women into Colorado for abortions.
The number of abortions performed in Colorado has risen sharply in the first years of the 2020s. The number of abortions performed for non-residents has risen with it.
Colorado providers performed around 9,000 abortions in 2017-19. In 2020, there were nearly 9,900. In 2021, there were 11,580.
The number of non-resident abortions rose as well. There were around 1,000 between 2017 and 2019. In 2020, that rose to 1,283. It rose again to 1,569 non-resident abortions in 2021.
Non-residents have also become a higher share of the abortions performed in Colorado.
In the last three years of the 2010s, non-residents accounted for an average 11% of Colorado’s abortions, but that grew to 13.6% in 2021.
Colorado clinics are bracing for that to grow.
Thirteen U.S. states have so-called “trigger laws” in place that will now ban abortions in most cases following the Supreme Court’s decision: Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.
Two-thirds of Colorado’s non-resident abortions come from states with trigger laws, particularly South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming.
In 2021, 25% of non-resident abortions came from Wyoming. Another 25% came from Texas. South Dakota accounted for 9% of non-resident abortions. Fifty-four non-resident abortions came from Utah, which is about 3%.