The Indiana Department of Health just released their 2023 Q3 reports for Indiana abortion numbers and abortion complications. Here are our key takeaways from the data:
1. Legal Abortions Way Down
According to this report, there were just 14 legal abortions in Indiana in September 2023. September was the first full month SEA 1, our abortion ban, was in effect.
The report does not include abortions from online abortion pill sales or Hoosier women traveling out of state for abortions.
2. A Majority of Complications Are From Pill Abortions
The abortion pill is 4 times more likely to cause a complication than a surgical abortion, and this report proves nothing less.
25 of the 32 abortion complications listed in the report were from non-surgical abortions (About 65%).
The danger and widespread use of the abortion pill prompted us to redesign our door to door flyer to educate on these dangers. Learn more about the abortion pill here.
3. No New Hospitals Performing Abortions
With SEA 1 restricting abortions to happening only in hospitals, we were afraid more Indiana hospitals would begin performing abortions.
According to this report, the only hospitals that performed abortions in Q3 are:
- Schneck Medical Center
- IU Health Methodist Hospital
- IU Health University Hospital
- Riley Maternity Tower
- Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Hospital.
All of these hospitals performed abortions prior to SEA 1 going into effect. Hospital policy transition can take a long time to update, so we will be watching closely to see if more hospitals start.
4. A Significant Increase In “Retained Tissue” Complications
“Retained tissue” or “incomplete abortion” happens when a physician fails to remove all pieces of the fetus and/or placenta from a woman’s uterus. Retained tissue can cause severe infection, and if not treated, death.
The Indiana Q3 abortion complication report listed 27 cases of retained tissue complications during just July-September of last year. To put this in perspective, the 2022 Complication report listed just 35 cases for the entire year.
5. Individual TPRs Have Not Been Released
While the IDOH released this aggregated reported, we are still waiting on individual terminated pregnancy reports. While this larger report is helpful, individual documents possess more data we need to evaluate.
We made the initial public records request Fall of last year for September and October TPRs. The last update we received said our request is “pending review by our Vital Records data team.” We will continue to update you on this situation.
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