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171,000 Traveled for Abortions Last Year. See Where They Went.

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171,000 Traveled for Abortions Last Year. See Where They Went.

Source: The Guttmacher Institute

Orange states had a total or six-week ban in 2023.

More than 14,000 Texas patients crossed the border into New Mexico for an abortion last year. An additional 16,000 left Southern states bound for Illinois. And nearly 12,000 more traveled north from South Carolina and Georgia to North Carolina.

These were among the more than 171,000 patients who traveled for an abortion in 2023, new estimates show, demonstrating both the upheaval in access since the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the limits of state bans to stop the procedure. The data also highlights the unsettled nature of an issue that will test politicians up and down the ballot in November.

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Out-of-state travel for abortions — either to have a procedure or obtain abortion pills — more than doubled in 2023 compared with 2019, and made up nearly a fifth of recorded abortions.

Where patients traveled for abortions

Source: Guttmacher Institute

Note: Map reflects abortion laws as of Dec. 31, except in Wisconsin, where a ban was in place for a majority of the year. Routes with fewer than 100 patients are not shown.

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Most traveling patients went to the next closest state that allowed abortions. But those in the South, where 13 states banned or restricted the procedure, had to go farther.

One traveler was a 24-year-old woman from Columbus, Ga., who asked to be identified by only her first initial, A. She flew to New York City last summer after discovering she was past six weeks of pregnancy, when Georgia no longer allows abortion.

She decided to travel over a weekend instead of self-managing with pills at home. “I had to go back to work on Monday,” she said. “I just didn’t have that kind of time.”

Texas, the largest state to ban abortion, had the most residents travel across state lines for the procedure, the data shows.

Source: Guttmacher Institute

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Note: Routes with fewer than 100 patients are not shown.

On the receiving end, nowhere saw more out-of-state patients — and from more states — than Illinois.

An island of access in the Midwest

Source: Guttmacher Institute

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Note: Routes with fewer than 100 patients are not shown.

People in states where the procedure remained legal also traveled for abortions, sometimes because the closest clinic was across state lines or the influx of out-of-state patients made appointments scarce. The data shows that abortions rose in nearly every state where they remained legal.

Many traveling patients faced multiday trips, lost income and child care costs. Some patients were unable to travel. Earlier research found that in the first half of 2023, almost a quarter of women living in states with near-total bans — who may have otherwise sought an abortion — did not get one.

“Abortion is one of the most common procedures in medicine,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, the founder of Whole Woman’s Health, which runs clinics in Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia.

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“We’re having people travel hundreds or thousands of miles for a procedure that typically takes less than 10 minutes and can be done in a doctor’s office setting,” she said. “Nobody does that for any other medical procedure.”

The new estimates of resident and out-of-state abortions come from the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, and they offer the first detailed picture of the interstate travelers who helped push the number of abortions nationwide to a high in 2023. The researchers surveyed a sample of clinics in each state where abortion remained legal to estimate the number of abortions.

For some anti-abortion groups, the feeling of victory after the overturn of Roe has been dimmed by the number of people circumventing abortion bans — and the lack of political will to address the issue in an election year.

“We’re agitating some of the Republicans who would be very comfortable spiking the football, patting themselves on the back, running for re-election, and then focusing on other issues that they’re more interested in,” said John Seago, the president of Texas Right to Life.

“We’ve never had a sense of finality. We’ve only seen the other side escalate their efforts to promote abortion,” he added.

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Change in abortions by state

State

Abortions 2023

Change from 2019

Nonresident share

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Wyo. 420 385% 18%
N.M. 20,960 369% 71%
Kan. 20,640 206% 69%
Va. 34,610 110% 17%
Colo. 25,210 103% 28%
S.C. 9,040 81% 40%
Ill. 90,540 73% 41%
Del. 3,520 72% 8%
Nev. 15,980 61% 16%
N.C. 45,800 56% 35%
Mont. 2,220 38% 10%
Utah 4,110 35% 7%
Minn. 14,620 31% 21%
Ore. 11,930 31% 11%
Wash. 24,220 30% 8%
Mich. 37,510 29% 7%
Md. 38,600 29% 21%
Alaska 1,650 25% 3%
Vt. 1,490 25% 26%
Hawaii 3,910 24% 6%
Conn. 14,790 23% 6%
Pa. 37,850 21% 7%
N.J. 58,380 21% 7%
Iowa 4,150 20% 10%
Calif. 179,610 19% 4%
Fla. 85,220 18% 11%
Neb. 2,540 18% 15%
N.H. 2,450 17% 12%
Ohio 23,750 16% 13%
Maine 2,400 14% 6%
Mass. 21,570 13% 6%
N.Y. 130,800 12% 5%
R.I. 2,960 4% 10%
Ariz. 13,220 2% 3%
D.C. 9,100 -8% 53%
Ga. 33,500 -16% 24%
Ind. 4,530 -41% 21%
Wis. 870 -88% 1%

No results

Source: Guttmacher Institute

Note: No data was collected from 13 states that had near-total abortion bans for all of 2023. A ban was in place in Wisconsin for a majority of the year.

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The availability of abortion pills has significantly blunted the impact of many state bans. But some patients still must travel to see a provider because of a medical condition or how far along they are in pregnancy. Others simply prefer it.

“I didn’t want the pills to get delivered to my school,” said Mia, 20, a college student in Houston who asked to be identified by only her first name. Instead, last August, she drove 12 hours to an Albuquerque clinic. “In case anything went wrong, I didn’t know if I could go to a hospital,” she said. “I figured it would be best to go in person and that way I’d know that it was taken care of.”

The clinic covered the procedure’s cost, but Mia paid around $500 for gas, two nights at an Airbnb and Uber rides to get to and from her appointment.

The explosion of out-of-state travel has been met with support from abortion clinics and abortion funds, which expanded access to services and financial support for patients.

“Now we have places where people who’ve been driving all night can nap in our clinics,” said Ms. Hagstrom Miller. “We have couches. We have waiting rooms specifically for children, with toys. We bring in sandwiches and food.”

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States with liberal abortion laws have also played a significant role.

“It looks like the protective policies that the states are enacting do matter,” said Kelly Baden, the vice president for public policy at the Guttmacher Institute. “But we should not be normalizing the reliance on networks of volunteers and donations.”

Illinois has invested upwards of $23 million into expanding abortion access and reproductive health care since 2022. Providers in the state have extended clinic hours and increased staffing and the availability of hospital-based abortion care.

“Things are running along very smoothly,” said Dr. Allison Cowett, the medical director at Family Planning Associates, a Chicago clinic whose patient volume has doubled since 2018. “We’ve caught up to the speed of things. This is our new normal.”

The Chicago Abortion Fund provides, on average, about $880 to each patient seeking an abortion in Illinois, up from around $545 in 2022, thanks to donations and city and state grants.

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“It still feels precarious — you don’t know when the priority of a single institution or a single foundation will change,” said Megan Jeyifo, the fund’s executive director.

Despite restrictions, patients traveled across the Southeast

Source: Guttmacher Institute

Note: Routes shown are for patients traveling into and out of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Routes with fewer than 100 patients are not shown.

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In Florida, the fight over abortion restrictions is far from over, with consequences for women across the South. The state had an 18 percent rise in abortions last year, including nearly 10,000 out-of-state patients.

A six-week ban that took effect in May has already upended those patterns, and advocates are asking voters to preserve abortion rights in the state’s Constitution in November.

For now, the closest state offering abortions later than six weeks in pregnancy is North Carolina, which requires counseling and a 72-hour waiting period.

“It’s a logistical nightmare,” said Kelly Flynn, the chief executive of A Woman’s Choice, which has clinics in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. To save patients two trips out of Florida, physicians at her Florida clinic are licensed in North Carolina so that they can perform the mandatory counseling before the patient travels north.

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Trump Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to Extend Cease-Fire by Three Weeks

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Trump Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to Extend Cease-Fire by Three Weeks

President Trump announced a three-week extension of a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon that had been set to expire in a few days, after hosting a meeting between Israeli and Lebanese diplomats at the White House on Thursday.

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group that has been attacking Israel from southern Lebanon, did not have representatives at the meeting and did not immediately comment on the announcement. The prime minister of Israel and the president of Lebanon also did not comment.

A successful peace agreement would hinge upon Hezbollah halting attacks, which Lebanon’s government has little power to enforce because it does not control the militia. Lebanon’s military has mostly stayed out of the fighting and is not at war with Israel.

The cease-fire, which was scheduled to end on April 26, would last until May 17 if it takes effect as Mr. Trump described it. Before the cease-fire was brokered last week, nearly 2,300 people were killed in Lebanon and 13 in Israel. Since then, the number of Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah attacks have been dramatically reduced, though the two sides have continued exchanging fire.

The Lebanese Ambassador to the United States, Nada Hamadeh, credited Mr. Trump for extending the cease-fire, saying that “with your help and support, we can make Lebanon great again.” Mr. Trump replied, “I like that phrase, it’s a good phrase.”

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Asked about the potential of a lasting peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, Mr. Trump said that “I think there’s a great chance. They are friends about the same things and they are enemies on the same things.”

But Lebanon and Israel have periodically been at war since Israel’s founding in 1948. Israel has invaded Lebanon for the fifth time since 1978, incursions that have destabilized the country and the delicate balance of power between Muslim, Christian and Druze communities.

In the hours before the president’s announcement on social media, Israel and Hezbollah were trading attacks in southern Lebanon, testing the existing cease-fire.

Mr. Trump said the meeting at the White House had been attended by high-ranking U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the U.S. ambassadors to Israel and Lebanon.

Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli strike near the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh killed three people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Hezbollah claimed three separate attacks on Israeli troops who are occupying southern Lebanon, though none were wounded or killed.

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Hezbollah set off the latest round of fighting last month by attacking Israel soon after the start of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran. Israel responded to Hezbollah’s attacks by launching airstrikes across Lebanon and widening a ground invasion of the country’s south.

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U.S. soldier charged with suspected Polymarket insider trading over Maduro raid

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U.S. soldier charged with suspected Polymarket insider trading over Maduro raid

Smoke rises from Port of La Guaira in Venezuela on Jan. 3, 2026 after U.S. forces seized the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

Jesus Vargas/Getty Images


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Federal prosecutors on Thursday unsealed an indictment against a U.S. Army soldier, accusing him of using his insider knowledge of the clandestine military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January to reap more than $400,000 in profits on the popular prediction market site Polymarket.

The Justice Department says Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, was part of the team that planned and carried out the predawn raid in Caracas earlier this year that resulted in the apprehension of Maduro.

The Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed the actions against Van Dyke, the first time U.S. officials have leveled criminal charges against someone over prediction market wagers.

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According to the indictment, Van Dyke now faces counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud, misusing non-public government information and other charges.

Trading under numerous usernames including “Burdensome-Mix,” Van Dyke allegedly traded about $32,000 on the arrest of Maduro, resulting in profits exceeding $400,000.

“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York. “Those entrusted to safeguard our nation’s secrets have a duty to protect them and our armed service members, and not to use that information for personal financial gain.”

Van Dyke’s defense lawyer is not yet publicly known. Polymarket did not return a request for comment.

The charges against Van Dyke come at a sensitive time for the prediction market industry, which has been growing exponentially, despite calls in Washington and among state leaders for the sites to be reined in.

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Van Dyke is the first to be charged in the U.S. for suspected Polymarket insider trading, but Israeli authorities in February arrested several people and charged two on suspicion of using classified information to place bets about military operations in Iran on Polymarket.

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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS

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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS

The Senate early Thursday morning adopted a Republican budget blueprint that would pave the way for a $70 billion increase for immigration enforcement and the eventual reopening of the Department of Homeland Security.

Republicans pushed through the plan on a nearly party-line vote of 50 to 48. It came after an overnight marathon of rapid-fire votes, known as a vote-a-rama, in which the G.O.P. beat back a series of Democratic proposals aimed at addressing the high cost of health care, housing, food and energy. The debate put the two parties’ dueling messages on vivid display six months before the midterm elections.

Republicans, who are using the budget plan to lay the groundwork to eventually push through a filibuster-proof bill providing a multiyear funding stream for President Trump’s immigration crackdown, used the all-night session to highlight their hard-line stance on border security, seeking to portray Democrats as unwilling to safeguard the country.

Democrats tried and failed to add a series of changes aimed at addressing cost-of-living issues, seizing the opportunity to hammer Republicans as out of touch with and unwilling to act on the concerns of everyday Americans.

Here’s what to know about the budget plan and the nocturnal ritual senators engaged in before adopting it.

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The budget blueprint is a crucial piece of Republicans’ plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end a shutdown that has lasted for more than two months. After Democrats refused to fund immigration enforcement without new restrictions on agents’ tactics and conduct, the G.O.P. struck a deal with them to pass a spending bill that would fund everything but ICE and the Border Patrol. Republicans said they would fund those agencies through a special budget bill that Democrats could not block.

“We can fix this with Republican votes, and we will,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the Budget Committee chairman. “Every Democrat has opposed money for the Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great peril.”

In resorting to a new budget blueprint, Republicans laid the groundwork to deny Democrats a chance to stop the immigration enforcement funding. But they also submitted themselves to a vote-a-rama, in which any senator can propose unlimited changes to such a measure before it is adopted.

The budget measure now goes to the House, which must adopt it before lawmakers in both chambers can draft the legislation funding immigration enforcement. That bill will provide yet another opportunity for a vote-a-rama even closer to the November election.

Democrats took to the floor to criticize Republicans for supercharging funding for federal immigration enforcement rather than moving legislation that would address Americans’ concerns over affordability.

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“This is what Republicans are fighting for,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Democratic leader. “To maintain two unchecked rogue agencies that are dreaded in all corners of this country instead of reducing your health care costs, your housing costs, your grocery costs, your gas costs.”

Democrats offered a host of amendments along those lines, all of which were defeated by Republicans — and that was the point. The proposals were meant to put the G.O.P. in a tough political spot, showcasing their opposition to helping Americans afford high living costs. Fewer than a handful of G.O.P. senators crossed party lines to support them.

The G.O.P. thwarted an effort by Mr. Schumer to require that the budget measure lower out-of-pocket health care costs for Americans. Two Republicans who are up for re-election this year, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, voted with Democrats, but the proposal was still defeated.

Republicans also squelched a move by Senator Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat of New Mexico, to create a fund that would lower grocery costs and reverse cuts to food aid programs that Republicans enacted last year. Ms. Collins and Mr. Sullivan again joined Democrats.

Also defeated by the G.O.P.: a proposal by Senator John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, to address rising consumer prices brought on by Mr. Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran; one by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, to require the budget measure to address rising electricity prices, and another by Mr. Markey to create a fund to bring down housing costs.

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Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is up for re-election in Georgia, also sought to add language requiring the budget plan to address health insurance companies denying or delaying access to care, but that, too was blocked by Republicans.

While Republicans had fewer proposals for changes to their own budget plan, they also sought to offer measures that would underscore their aggressive stance on immigration enforcement and dare Democrats to vote against them.

Mr. Graham offered an amendment to allocate funds toward a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to the apprehension and deportation of adult immigrants convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor after illegally entering the United States. It passed unanimously.

Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, sought to bar Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and other services, and criticized the organization for providing transgender care to minors. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, also attempted to tack on the G.O.P. voter identification bill, known as the SAVE America Act. Both proposals were blocked when Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, voted to strike them as unrelated to the budget plan.

The Republicans who crossed party lines to oppose their own party’s proposals for new voting requirements were Ms. Collins along with Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

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Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski also opposed the effort to block payments to Planned Parenthood.

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