A patient in Texas cannot legally get a routine abortion. Just across the border, New Mexico has no general legal cutoff based on how many weeks pregnant someone is.
For someone in El Paso, abortion care may be available across the state line. Someone in Houston could face a drive of several hundred miles to reach a clinic in a state without a near-total ban. And finding a state where abortion is legal does not guarantee an available appointment.
Across the United States, 13 states ban most abortions in 2026. Four more have six-week limits, and another two generally restrict abortion after 12 weeks.
It has been four years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The June 2022 Dobbs decision allowed states to enforce restrictions that the earlier federal standard had prevented.
The consequences are visible in hospital emergency rooms, clinic waiting lists and the thousands of people who cross state lines for care. Even where a law contains exceptions, patients and doctors must still work within its conditions.
Which 13 States Ban Most Abortions in 2026?
Most states with near-total bans are in the South, although Idaho, Indiana and North Dakota are also on the list. Every state allows abortion in at least some circumstances, but those exceptions are not identical.
| State | Main Exceptions or Conditions |
|---|---|
| Alabama | Life, health and lethal fetal anomalies |
| Arkansas | Threats to the pregnant patient’s life |
| Idaho | Threats to life and qualifying reported rape or incest cases |
| Indiana | Life, serious physical health risks, rape, incest and certain lethal fetal anomalies |
| Kentucky | Life and serious physical health risks |
| Louisiana | Life and serious physical health risks |
| Mississippi | Life and qualifying rape cases |
| North Dakota | Life, physical health and qualifying rape or incest cases |
| Oklahoma | Threats to life |
| South Dakota | Threats to life |
| Tennessee | Life and serious physical health risks |
| Texas | Life-threatening emergencies and specified serious physical health risks |
| West Virginia | Life, physical health, qualifying rape or incest cases and lethal fetal anomalies |
Abbreviated overview of major exceptions. Individual laws may also contain reporting rules, deadlines and other conditions.
Consider Idaho. A patient seeking an abortion under its rape or incest provision must meet specific reporting requirements. Under Idaho’s abortion statute, a qualifying report must be made to law enforcement or, in specified circumstances involving minors, child protective services.
Someone who has not reported the assault cannot simply arrive at a clinic and rely on the exception. The paperwork becomes part of the medical decision.
Health exceptions raise another problem. A doctor may believe a pregnancy is becoming dangerous, yet still need to establish that the patient’s condition meets the law’s threshold for treatment.
Six-Week Abortion Bans Leave Patients With Days, Not Months
Florida, Georgia, Iowa and South Carolina generally prohibit abortions after six weeks. Nebraska and North Carolina have 12-week limits.
| State | General Abortion Limit |
|---|---|
| Florida | 6 weeks |
| Georgia | 6 weeks |
| Iowa | 6 weeks |
| South Carolina | 6 weeks |
| Nebraska | 12 weeks |
| North Carolina | 12 weeks |
Doctors count pregnancy from the first day of the last menstrual period, not conception. A woman who discovers she is pregnant at five weeks has about seven days before reaching the six-week cutoff.
Now consider the calendar. She finds out on Monday. The clinic has no appointments until the following Monday. Even without a waiting period, she could reach the legal deadline before her visit.
A six-week ban therefore does not provide six weeks to arrange care after a positive pregnancy test. Much of that time has already passed.
Florida Adds Documentation and In-Person Requirements
Florida allows certain abortions after six weeks when the pregnancy resulted from rape, incest or human trafficking, up to a 15-week limit. Patients must provide documentation.
Under Florida’s abortion law, qualifying records can include a police report, restraining order or medical record. Florida also has in-person requirements and a waiting period.
Someone who lives far from a clinic may need to arrange two trips. That can mean two days away from work, transportation costs and childcare before the medical bill is even paid.
North Carolina has a different rule. Its 72-hour informed consent requirement generally requires counseling at least three days before a surgical abortion, except in qualifying emergencies. Counseling can be provided remotely under the applicable rules.
North Carolina’s three-day requirement does not apply to Florida’s six-week deadline. Each state has its own clock, which is why people need the rules for the specific place where care will be provided.
Which States Allow Abortion Later in Pregnancy?
Some states generally allow abortion until fetal viability, the point at which a fetus may survive outside the uterus. There is no single week that establishes viability in every pregnancy.
Kansas, Ohio and Wisconsin generally use a 22-week standard. Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania have limits around 24 weeks, with medical exceptions in specified circumstances.
Nine states and Washington, D.C., have no general statutory pregnancy-week cutoff under the KFF gestational limit classification.
| State or District | General Gestational Cutoff |
|---|---|
| Alaska | None |
| Colorado | None |
| District of Columbia | None |
| Maryland | None |
| Michigan | None |
| Minnesota | None |
| New Jersey | None |
| New Mexico | None |
| Oregon | None |
| Vermont | None |
Nine states and Washington, D.C., are listed. No general legal cutoff does not mean abortion services are available at every clinic or stage of pregnancy.
Someone who needs an abortion later in pregnancy cannot simply choose any clinic in a state without a cutoff. Many facilities provide only early abortion care. More complex cases can require specialists or hospital services.
For patients traveling from a ban state, legal permission is only the first hurdle. The next is finding a provider with the staff, equipment and appointment availability to treat them.
Abortion Pills Accounted for 63% of Nonhospital Abortions
Medication abortion commonly uses two drugs. Mifepristone blocks a hormone needed for pregnancy to continue, and misoprostol causes the uterus to empty. The FDA-approved regimen is used through 10 weeks of pregnancy.
Medication abortions made up 63% of nonhospital abortions in 2023, according to research summarized in KFF’s medication abortion review.
By the first half of 2025, telehealth accounted for 27% of clinician-provided abortions. Patients who qualified could receive care without making an in-person clinic visit, although their legal options still depended on the circumstances and applicable state rules.
Mifepristone distribution remains the subject of federal litigation. In May 2026, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked a lower-court restriction in Louisiana v. FDA, leaving existing federal dispensing rules in place while the case continued.
The interim decision did not cancel state abortion bans.
142,000 People Crossed State Lines for Abortion Care in 2025
Travel for abortion care fell in 2025, but clinics outside ban states still treated thousands of people who could not obtain routine services closer to home.
The Guttmacher Institute’s March 2026 report recorded 142,000 interstate abortion travelers, down from 154,000 in 2024.
| Abortion Care in the U.S. | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Clinician-provided abortions | 1,124,000 | 1,126,000 |
| Patients traveling to another state | 154,000 | 142,000 |
| Travelers from total-ban states | 74,000 | 62,000 |
| Telehealth abortions for residents of total-ban states | 72,000 | 91,000 |
Source: Guttmacher Institute, Monthly Abortion Provision Study. Counts are estimates of clinician-provided care and exclude some self-managed abortions.
Telehealth provision to residents of total-ban states increased by 19,000, while travel from those states decreased by 12,000.
Those numbers do not prove that every person who avoided a trip used telehealth instead. They show that remote care expanded at the same time interstate travel declined.
Illinois Treated More Than One in Five Interstate Travelers
Illinois provided 32,000 abortions to patients from other states in 2025. Out of 142,000 interstate travelers nationwide, that works out to 22.5%.
For people living in neighboring states with bans, Illinois is not just another legal destination. It is a major part of the region’s abortion care system.
North Carolina provided almost 18,000 abortions to out-of-state patients. Many came from the Southeast, where Florida’s six-week ban reduced access.
The larger point is that care has not simply disappeared from the national total. Many patients are obtaining it somewhere else, and the burden of making that journey falls on the person seeking treatment.
What Does an Abortion Cost Without Insurance?
The median self-pay price for medication abortion at an in-person provider was $563 in 2023. Virtual clinics charged a median of $150, according to research on abortion service prices.
At the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, $563 equals almost 78 hours of gross pay.
Nearly two full working weeks, before taxes. And that only covers the treatment.
A patient traveling to another state may also pay for transportation, childcare and accommodation. Someone paid by the hour can lose income for every shift missed.
Insurance coverage varies. KFF’s insurance policy data identifies 25 states with restrictions on abortion coverage in Marketplace plans. Federal Medicaid funding is also restricted under the Hyde Amendment, although some states use their own money for wider coverage.
The $413 gap between the median in-person and virtual medication prices helps explain why telehealth is financially important to eligible patients. But a remote appointment cannot replace a procedure that requires an in-person provider.
Researchers Estimated 478 Additional Infant Deaths After Bans
Researchers studying 14 states with complete or six-week abortion bans estimated 22,180 additional births and 478 more infant deaths than expected after the restrictions took effect.
The infant mortality research by Gemmill and colleagues was published in JAMA in February 2025. It used birth and death records from 2012 through 2023.
Infant mortality was 5.6% higher than the researchers’ model predicted.
The distinction between observed and expected deaths is important. Researchers did not identify 478 individual deaths and determine that abortion laws caused each one. They compared recorded deaths with a statistical estimate of what might have happened without the bans.
Texas had a major influence on the result. Its six-week restriction took effect in September 2021, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
Black Infant Mortality Rose More Than Expected
Among non-Hispanic Black infants in the states studied, researchers recorded 11.81 deaths per 1,000 live births. Their model predicted 10.66 per 1,000.
That is almost 11% more deaths than expected.
The study used CDC birth and death records. Those rates describe the research period, not new infant mortality numbers for 2026.
Black infants already have higher mortality rates nationally, so an additional increase carries particular significance for affected families and communities.
Our report on the Black population by U.S. county provides more demographic information.
What Happens When a Pregnancy Becomes an Emergency?
Consider a patient whose water breaks at 19 weeks, before the pregnancy is viable. An infection develops. The doctor knows that continuing the pregnancy could make the patient seriously ill.
In a state with a strict abortion ban, the medical team also has to consider the legal exception. Does the patient’s condition already meet the required standard, or must the danger become more severe?
A delay can allow an infection to spread. The same concern applies to serious bleeding and other pregnancy complications where treatment becomes more urgent as the condition worsens.
| Medical or Legal Situation | What Can Happen |
|---|---|
| Life-threatening emergency | State bans generally allow treatment, but the legal requirements vary |
| Serious physical health complication | Some states allow earlier treatment; others have narrower exceptions |
| Pregnancy resulting from rape | Some states require reports, documentation or specific deadlines |
The Johns Hopkins research on abortion bans examined changes in births and infant deaths after restrictions took effect.
For doctors treating a deteriorating patient, the problem is not always identifying the necessary medical care. It can be establishing that the patient already meets the legal conditions for providing it.
Three States Face Abortion Votes in November 2026
Missouri, Nevada and Virginia have abortion-related measures scheduled for November 2026.
| State | What Voters Will Decide |
|---|---|
| Missouri | A proposal to reverse abortion protections approved in 2024 |
| Nevada | A second vote on constitutional reproductive rights protections |
| Virginia | A proposed constitutional amendment, subject to legal proceedings |
Nevada requires citizen-initiated constitutional amendments to pass in two successive general elections. Voters approved its reproductive rights proposal in 2024. A second approval in 2026 is necessary for the amendment to take effect.
Missouri’s measure would repeal protections approved two years earlier. Virginia’s proposed amendment has faced legal challenges involving its ballot status.
The KFF abortion ballot tracker covers the three proposals.
The embedded YouTube video concerns possible ballot measures in 2024 and is included as historical background, not as a source for the 2026 measures.
Six in Ten Americans Support Legal Abortion
A Pew Research Center survey published March 12, 2026, found that 60% of U.S. adults believed abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Another 38% said it should be illegal in all or most cases.
Pew’s March 2026 gender breakdown found support among 64% of women and 55% of men.
| Group | Support for Legal Abortion |
|---|---|
| All U.S. adults | 60% |
| Women | 64% |
| Men | 55% |
| Ages 18–29 | 66% |
| Ages 30–49 | 61% |
| Ages 50–64 | 57% |
| Ages 65 and older | 57% |
Source: Pew Research Center, survey conducted January 20–26, 2026. Percentages refer to support for abortion being legal in all or most cases.
A person can support legal abortion in general and still favor limits at a particular stage of pregnancy. The 60% result measures support for abortion being legal in all or most cases, not agreement on every restriction or medical exception.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Many States Ban Abortion in 2026?
Thirteen states ban most abortions. Another six generally restrict abortion after six or 12 weeks. Every state has its own rules about medical emergencies and other exceptions.
Can Someone Travel to Another State for an Abortion?
People continue to travel for abortion care. In 2025, an estimated 142,000 patients received care outside their home state. The destination state’s laws and the availability of an appropriate provider both affect access.
Are Abortion Pills Available in Every State?
Mifepristone is FDA-approved, but state abortion bans can restrict access to medication abortion. Some patients obtain telehealth care from providers operating under protective state laws.
Can a Doctor Provide an Abortion During an Emergency?
State bans contain exceptions for specified emergencies, although the legal standards vary. Doctors must assess the patient’s condition against those rules. Anyone experiencing an emergency should seek immediate medical attention.
Can Someone Get Abortion Pills Through Telehealth?
Telehealth is available to some patients early in pregnancy. Access depends on medical eligibility, the patient’s location, applicable state law and the legal authority under which the clinician provides care.
