On June 22, 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion established a half-century before in Roe v. Wade, opening the door to state abortion bans across the country. Today, 12 states prohibit abortion entirely; four states ban abortion at six weeks, two at 12 weeks, and one at 18 weeks.

Despite these bans, the number of abortions in the U.S. has actually increased. In 2020 — the year before Texas became the first state to ban abortion in defiance of Roe — the number of abortions in the U.S. was 930,160. In 2023, there were 1,026,700 abortions in the U.S.— an increase of close to 100,000 — roughly 10% in just three years, despite the bans.

These numbers do not count the tens of thousands of people obtaining abortion pills outside of the medical system. How do we make sense of this?

The surprising increase in abortion post-Dobbs is due to several reasons. First, states banning abortion are also making access to contraception increasingly difficult, especially for young people, resulting in more unwanted pregnancies and more need for abortions.

Second, anti-abortion policymakers do not support the kinds of policies that help people carry pregnancies to term and care for the children they have, such as Medicaid expansion, paid parental leave, publicly funded child care, living wage jobs, free school lunches and SNAP benefits. In fact, conservatives are now redirecting meager welfare dollars away from poor women trying to feed their children toward anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” that use disinformation and coercion to pressure poor women to have children they cannot feed.

If women can’t afford to care for a child, they are more likely to end unplanned pregnancies.

Third, conservative policymakers are passing abortion bans that prevent doctors from offering lifesaving medical care to pregnant women experiencing complications. Maternal mortality and morbidity rates have increased significantly since Dobbs in states banning abortion. Many women have already died because of abortion bans, including Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick, Jesseli Barnica, Porsha Ngumezi and Nevaeh Crain from Texas, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller from Georgia, and Taysha Wilkinson-Sobieski from Indiana. Making pregnancy and childbirth more dangerous discourages women from carrying pregnancies to term.

Fourth, anti-abortion prosecutors also have increased criminalization of pregnant women. Recent research revealed that at least 210 women faced criminal charges because of their pregnancies or pregnancy outcomes in the year after Dobbs — the highest number of documented prosecutions ever in a single year. The real number is likely much higher. Making pregnancy legally risky incentivizes abortion.

Finally, the increase in abortion is due to the strengthening of abortion rights in states protecting them, such as in Massachusetts, and the development of new avenues to access abortion pills, which are now used in over two-thirds of all abortions. Advocates have pioneered telehealth abortion, where health care providers consult with patients online and deliver abortion pills by mail.

In addition, eight states (including Massachusetts) have passed telehealth abortion shield laws that allow clinicians within their borders to provide telehealth abortion services to people living in states with bans. Finally, grassroots activists also have pioneered new avenues to access medication abortion outside of the medical system, such as community networks sharing pills for free and websites selling pills for as little as $25 (see www.plancpills.org for details).

These new avenues have undermined the key anti-abortion strategy of limiting abortion to freestanding brick-and-mortar clinics, and then regulating, or terrorizing, these clinics out of existence. Since 1977, “pro-life” activists have committed 11 murders, 42 bombings, 200 arsons, 531 assaults, 492 clinic invasions, 375 burglaries, and thousands of other crimes against clinic patients, providers and employees. Since Dobbs, there has been a sharp increase in violent anti-abortion attacks on clinics, especially in states that protect abortion rights.

Abortion pills are more important than ever now that Donald Trump is back in the White House. But he and his people are coming after abortion pills because they know these medications are a critical path to accessing abortion. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy agenda for Trump takes direct aim at abortion pills, with plans to roll back FDA approval of mifepristone and to misuse a 19th-century anti-obscenity law to criminally prosecute anyone who mails abortion pills, including distributors and doctors.

While abortion bans have so far targeted medical providers and those helping people obtain abortion care, anti-abortion politicians are now proposing laws that target people who have abortions by reclassifying abortion as homicide subject to the death penalty.

Any attempt by the government, or anyone else for that matter, to force another person to continue a pregnancy is a form of bodily assault with surprisingly similar dynamics to rape. The essence of rape is taking control over another person’s body and forcing them to do something with their body that is against their will. Abortion bans do the same: they violate the most fundamental of human rights — to say at all times, under all circumstances, what we allow to happen to our bodies.

Coerced pregnancy is such an intense violation of bodily autonomy and dignity that people will find ways to end unwanted pregnancies, whether abortion is legal or not. By creating a hostile and dangerous environment for pregnant people, abortion bans are in fact driving up the number of abortions.

Carrie N. Baker is a professor in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College and a regular contributor to Ms. Magazine.