COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolinians are still having abortions, despite the restrictive state ban, advocates and researchers say.

Shield laws, which allow doctors in other states to provide care virtually, and interstate travel, make it possible for people in the state to access abortions, even with a six-week ban in place. Bans just make it harder to have an abortion, some abortion advocates argue.

“What the abortion ban has done has certainly made it more difficult for women to get care in this state, but it hasn’t stopped abortions,” said Vicki Ringer, the director of public affairs at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. “It’s just changed where they happen.”

Abortions administered in South Carolina were cut by nearly 60% in 2024, state Department of Public Health data showed. In 2023, there were over 8,000 abortions performed in South Carolina clinics. In 2024, that number fell to 3,025. The drop can largely be attributed to a six-week abortion ban that went into effect in 2023, and anti-abortion groups, like South Carolina Citizens for Life, celebrated the stat as a win.

However, the state data doesn’t account for South Carolina residents who traveled out of state or virtually received care from doctors in states with shield laws.

Overall, the number of abortions in the U.S. has increased between 2023 and 2024, according to research from the the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit that studies abortions and contraception.

The Guttmacher Institute, a progressive research group, estimated that about 8,540 South Carolina residents traveled out of state for care in 2024. In 2023, about 8,370 people traveled out-of-state. North Carolina made up most of the out-of-state travel with about 6,600 patients from South Carolina in 2024.

Research from the Society for Family Planning suggests 1 in 4 people nationally who had an abortion by the end of last year received it via telehealth and half of all telehealth abortions were facilitated by shield laws. Data from the organization predicts that 3,890 abortions were facilitated through telehealth in South Carolina in 2024.

“What we do know is that people in South Carolina who might have otherwise gotten abortions at abortion clinics in South Carolina, they are traveling or they’re getting pills online,” said David S. Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Cohen published a book on how abortion access changed after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 Supreme Court decision that effectively overturned Roe v. Wade.

Holly Gatling, the executive director of South Carolina Citizens for Life, said the state health department’s data was the “gold standard” for the organization.

“I can’t speculate on what-ifs,” she said about non-government sources showing that South Carolinians were using shield laws and traveling for abortions.

In 2023, South Carolina passed a six-week abortion ban, with exceptions for cases of rape and incest up to 12 weeks or if the pregnancy threatens a person’s life. It’s not the most restrictive ban in the region; Tennessee has a near total ban on abortions. Many people may not know they are pregnant at the six weeks, making it difficult for residents who do not want to give birth to have abortions in the state.

“This has to be somebody who’s testing regularly, or who has such a perfect menstrual cycle that they know the immediate minute that they miss a period and will immediately go and take a pregnancy test,” Ringer said.

Shield laws

Abortion shield laws, which have been passed in some states like Massachusetts and New York, allow providers in those states to prescribe abortion pills to people in states with bans, like South Carolina, without fear of prosecution.

South Carolina’s six-week ban requires that providers administer abortions in person, including for abortion pills. However, providers in states with shield laws won’t be prosecuted where they practice, creating an opportunity for South Carolinians who don’t want to travel for an abortion.

Telehealth abortions are generally more accessible than travel, Cohen said.

“It’s relatively cheap,” Cohen said. “You can do it from the comfort of your own home. You need to know about it, and you need to be able to access the Internet, but that’s not too disruptive to people’s lives.”

But Republican attorneys general, including South Carolina’s Alan Wilson, hope to stop shield laws and make it harder for people to use telehealth for abortions. Wilson signed on to a letter asking Congress to prevent shield laws at a federal level last week.

“Instead of allowing proabortion States to disrespect the decisions of other States regarding abortion and trample the Constitution, Congress should assess whether it should tackle this issue head on with legislation that preempts state shield laws,” the letter to Congressional leadership said. The letter was signed by 16 GOP attorneys general.

Travel

Dr. Patricia Seal says many people traveled out of the state to have abortions, even before the 2023 six-week ban, due to limited access. She is the South Carolina chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and a practicing OB-GYN in the state.

“After our ban went into effect in August of 2023, we saw that there was a huge drop of South Carolina residents receiving in-state care, and the vast majority were receiving their care out-of-state,” Seal said.

Many states in the region have similar bans to South Carolina, including Georgia and Florida. However, many patients are traveling to North Carolina to receive care, Guttmacher data shows. In 2023, state health data shows about 40% of abortion patients did not live in South Carolina, indicating that people are willing to travel.

While travel is an option for residents, it can be expensive and time-consuming, Seal and advocates said. Patients will often need to pay for transportation, lodging, food and child-care. For example, North Carolina has a 72-hour waiting period, so South Carolinians would have to travel out-of-state twice or pay for several nights in a hotel.

“There’s a personal expense, and there’s also time off work, travel expense, child care expenses within the home,” Seal said. “It’s kind of removing that person from their family for an extended period of time to seek this care.”

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