“I’m encouraged that the numbers dropped,” he said. “It worries me a little bit because it’s only one month.”
“It would be awesome if that were the case,” he continued. “But I’m skeptical that it’s going to be that way for the rest of the year or into the future.”
“Once we get the numbers for August, September, October, November, December, my suspicion is that the numbers are probably going to go back up,” he said.
The vast majority of abortions in the United States take place during the first trimester, or the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. In 2020, for instance, about 93% of all abortions were performed fewer than 13 weeks into gestation, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tracks abortions in 47 states and the District of Columbia.
Pincus said the new abortion law in North Carolina in theory should apply only to a portion of the other 7% of abortions that occur after 12 weeks. He noted that some women in the state will probably have abortions sooner than they would have otherwise because of the new law.
The new North Carolina statute requires that a physician performing an abortion meet in person with the woman at least 72 hours before it occurs to inform her orally of certain details about it, including what the law calls “the probable gestational age of the unborn child as determined by both patient history and by ultrasound results.”