WASHINGTON, United States  (AFP) — Women living in US states with abortion restrictions have shifted from travelling out of state to get the procedure to taking abortion pills prescribed via telehealth, according to a report published Tuesday by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.

In 13 states with abortion bans, about 91,000 women received abortion pill prescriptions via telehealth in 2025, the report said. That number marks an increase of more than 25 per cent compared with 72,000 prescriptions in 2024, according to the institute’s estimates.

Conversely, the report found the number of women who travelled from states with abortion bans to those with less restrictive laws fell from 74,000 in 2024 to about 62,000 in 2025.

Nationally, the number of people who travelled to receive abortions fell to 142,000 last year, down from the 170,000 recorded in 2024 and 154,000 in 2023.

“Taken together, these estimates suggest a substantial shift in the way people in states with total bans access abortion care, with fewer people travelling out of state and more accessing care via telehealth,” wrote the report’s authors, Isaac Maddow-Zimet and Kimya Forouzan.

The report noted that the trend has been facilitated by the so-called “shield laws”, which protect providers from prosecution by states where abortion is illegal. Eight US states — California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — have such laws.

Nationally, the number of abortions recorded in 2025 stood at more than 1.12 million, largely unchanged since 2024 and the highest rate since 2009.

After the US Supreme Court overturned federal protections for abortion in 2022, 13 states have instituted near-total bans on the procedure, and six more have significantly restricted access.