Abortion rates in Nebraska rose by almost 8% in 2025 from the previous year, largely due to an influx of residents from other states where abortion is strictly limited.According to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, at least 2,698 abortions were performed in 2025, up from 2,501 the year prior and marking the third year of consistent increase.
The increase was almost entirely due to the increase in women from other states traveling to Nebraska for abortions. Nearly 640 Iowa residents and 66 South Dakota residents traveled to Nebraska for abortions in 2025, up from 358 and 49, respectively, the year prior. Counter to the overall rise in abortions in the Cornhusker State, the number of Nebraskans seeking abortions went down in 2025, dropping to only 1,968 last year compared to 2,054 in 2024.Nebraska contributes only a small fraction of the roughly 1.1 million abortions each year in the United States, but the state’s abortion statistics reports are widely considered the most comprehensive state-level abortion data in the country, making it a solid indicator of what is happening in other states but is not necessarily being recorded. Following the Dobbs decision, the Nebraska state legislature in 2023 passed legislation prohibiting elective abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy. In 2024, others ratified a state constitutional amendment that prohibits elective abortions after the first trimester.South Dakota, by contrast, is one of the 13 states that has entirely prohibited elective abortion post-Dobbs. Iowa also has stricter abortion restrictions than neighboring Nebraska. Iowa law prohibits abortion after the detection of fetal cardiac activity, usually at approximately six weeks of pregnancy. Nationally, rates of travel for abortion have decreased, according to the annual statistics report from the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights think tank. In 2024, nearly 74,000 women from the 13 states with near-total abortion bans traveled out-of-state to obtain an abortion. By 2025, only 62,000 women from those states will have traveled across state lines for the procedure. The national decline in abortion-related travel is partly due to the proliferation of online sales of the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol.Mifepristone access has dominated the abortion debate since the overturning of Roe, following regulatory changes from the Biden Food and Drug Administration in 2023 that allowed for the drug to be sold online without seeing a physician in-person. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that roughly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. involve mifepristone, but Nebraska’s in-depth statistics suggest it is likely higher.PLANNED PARENTHOOD’S $47 MILLION CAMPAIGN IN SWING RACES AIMS TO MAKE ABORTION TOP MIDTERM FOCUSAccording to the DHHS report, medication abortions made up roughly 83% of all abortions in the state in 2025, up from 80% in 2024. The Nebraska data does not distinguish between a medication abortion initiated via telehealth or via an in-person appointment.
