Abortions declined significantly during the first year that an Iowa law that severely restricted the procedure was put in place.
Iowa had 3,050 clinician-provided abortions in 2025. That's a 22% drop from 2024, which saw 3,880 abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an organization that supports abortion rights.
The data include numbers from Iowans who got abortions at one of the state's brick-and-mortar clinics and through telehealth appointments, including those who received abortion pills from out-of-state medical providers in states with shield laws.
Last year marked the first full year an Iowa law was in effect banning abortion when cardiac activity is detected, which can be as early as six weeks of pregnancy. The law, which offers exceptions for rape, incest, fetal abnormalities and life of the pregnant person, went into effect in July 2024 following a state Supreme Court ruling.
Though abortions dropped in the state, it doesn't mean Iowans aren't seeking abortion care elsewhere, said Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a data scientist at the Guttmacher Institute.
"In particular, we'd expect that many Iowans are probably traveling out of state for care. That's something that we already were starting to see in 2024 and likely have accelerated in 2025," he said.
Guttmacher Institute data from 2024 shows most Iowans traveled to neighboring Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska for abortion care.
"It really is a major way that people are still accessing care," Maddow-Zimet said. "It's still requiring an enormous amount of resources to support that travel, and it can be a pretty significant burden on folks."
The most recent figures show people traveling to Iowa for abortion care has sharply declined since the law went into effect. In 2023, 420 people traveled to the state for care. That number dropped to 170 in 2024. Last year, it was less than 50 people. The Guttmacher Institute withholds the exact count if the total is less than 50.
Anti-abortion advocates are celebrating the state's decreasing abortion rate and recent closure several Planned Parenthood clinics, including one in Ames that provided abortions.
"Seeing the numbers of clinician-provided abortions drop in Iowa is a good thing for our state," said Maggie DeWitte, the executive director of Pulse Life Advocates. "We only have three abortion clinics in the state — three too many — but a big reduction from where we have been in previous years."
The state currently has two Planned Parenthood clinics in Des Moines and Iowa City and the Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City that perform abortions.
Anti-abortion advocates have been pushing a bill in the Statehouse this year that would crack down on out-of-state providers who mail abortions pills to Iowans and require that the medication is dispensed in a health care setting.
Abortion rights supporters and health care providers say the extra restrictions could drive more Iowans to obtain "black market" abortions.
The House bill passed the funnel last week, as it was referred to the appropriations committee, which keeps it eligible for debate.
