Mifepristone tablets. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Abortions increased in Ohio in 2025, with a low complication rate and a 15% increase from the previous year, “primarily due to telehealth prescriptions issued to Ohioans,” the state’s annual report on preliminary data says.
The report continued long-standing statistics showing low complication rates compared to the number of abortions performed.
Last year, the legislature used a reserve in the state operating budget for postpone the date for the Ohio Department of Health to publish an annual report from October to March.
The budget changes also changed report details, such as the age ranges listed, and also required an additional monthly report from the department.
Report for 2025 noted changes in the publication date and other details, added that data from the earlier publication “requires analysis of the preliminary data set” and that “some abortion and complication reports may have been incomplete or in transit at the time of this annual report.”
“While this earlier deadline required the report to be finalized before all data was fully confirmed, the annual report contains the most accurate information available,” the report said.
The report showed a total of 25,135 abortions in 2025, up from 19,892 in 2024.
Of the more than 25,000 abortions performed last year, 195 had one or more complications. The most common complication, still occurring in only 81 abortions, is classified as “incomplete abortion.”
In 2025, no abortion-related deaths were reported in Ohio.
The extensive majority of abortions, 73%, occurred in pregnancies lasting less than nine weeks, and 17.9% occurred between 9 and 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Fewer than 300 abortions occurred at 19 weeks or more of pregnancy, and in 439, the pregnancy was determined to be unviable by ultrasound or another method. Two of the abortions performed after the 19th week of pregnancy were considered feasible.
The largest group to have an abortion in 2025 was women aged 18 to 24, accounting for 32.8% of all abortions in the state.
One of the modern data items listed in the health department report is the number of abortions performed on minors, including the facility where the abortion was performed.
A total of 148 abortions were performed in Ohio for residents 16 and younger and 412 for residents 16 to 17 years senior.
The majority of abortions that occurred in Ohio were performed by Ohioans, who accounted for 79.1% of all abortions.
Out-of-state residents accounted for 5,200 abortions that occurred in the state, an increase from the 3,100 abortions recorded in 2024.
Data identified as “unknown” in the report appeared most frequently for demographic information such as race and education.
In terms of county-level identification, the report noted that telehealth prescriptions issued to Ohioans were listed as “unknown/unreported,” a data point of 3,776 cases.
More than 10,000 cases of the type of contraception used at conception were also listed as “unknown” in abortion cases.
The report comes after Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio announced it would expand telehealth abortion services through its Virtual Health Center.
The organization said Ohio residents can make appointments to receive abortion pills, “which is a convenient and accessible option for patients, particularly those who live in one of Ohio’s 24 counties without an OB-GYN, and for those whose jobs or caregiving responsibilities make in-person visits difficult,” the statement said.
Abortion rights group Abortion Forward said the state’s latest report shows more patients “are gaining access to the care they need,” a sign of success since a constitutional amendment allowing abortion until profitability was approved by 57% of Ohio voters in 2023.
“This is why voters approved the Reproductive Freedom Amendment,” said Jaime Miracle, deputy director of Abortion Forward.
Miracle said the report shows Ohio as a “medical destination state” for abortion services, especially with the 13 states where the services have been banned, including Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia.
The anti-abortion lobbying group Ohio Right to Life said the report was a “tragic demonstration that removing protections for children and their mothers in Ohio has real consequences.”
“We have worked so hard to let Ohio voters know that adding an amendment to expand abortion would be devastating for Ohio,” Carrie Snyder, executive director of Ohio Right to Life, said in a statement. “…The individual and cumulative magnitude of these statistics should not be discounted.”
Republican state and federal legislators in Ohio are working to regulate telehealth abortionsincluding attempts to circumvent changes to the state constitution.
On the federal side Republican United States Senator from Ohio, Jon Husted, attended during a U.S. Senate hearing before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in which abortion drugs were deemed “unsafe,” particularly mifepristone, one pill in a two-drug regimen used to treat abortion.
Husted joined other Republicans in calling for the reinstatement of the requirement to receive abortion medications in person.
Decades of peer-reviewed research have shown that the two-pill regimen is safe and sound and that grave complications are statistically infrequent.
Mifepristone has been an FDA-approved drug for over twenty years.
Facing a challenge in the midterm elections from former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of the Democratic Party, Husted will receive financial support from national pro-life groups.
In a statement, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and a pro-life political action committee called Women Speak Out said they would contribute $3.25 million to a campaign to “visit 500,000 Buckeye State voters in their homes by Election Day” in support of Husted, “as well as elect pro-life advocates in key U.S. House of Representatives races.”
“The Ohio campaign is part of a total $80 million investment in the 2026 midterm cycle to reach 10.5 million voters nationwide in the most competitive House, Senate and (governoral) battlegrounds in the country,” said Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
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