When a deadly virus spreads through a community, routine health care, including reproductive health care, may suffer. 

In North Carolina, the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped how and when residents got abortion care in unexpected ways, new research shows.

A team of University of North Carolina researchers tracked abortions in the state between March 2020, when the World Health Organization declared a global coronavirus pandemic, and December 2021. They specifically evaluated impacts on reproductive health care among Latina patients. 

The resulting peer-reviewed study, published in the Women’s Health Issues journal in December 2025, found that there was no spike in abortion care in the first month of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic. But as the pandemic continued, the number of abortions began to climb.

“Despite all of the barriers that were in place during the pandemic, people in North Carolina were still able to obtain abortions,” said the paper’s lead author, Marissa Velarde, who is now a post-doctoral research fellow at San Diego State University. “And in fact, the number of abortions increased.”

That increase in abortions, which occurred between April 2020 and December 2021, was more pronounced among Latina-identifying women, who had 6.3 more abortions per month than they did in March 2020. The white women who served as a comparison group for the research saw 4.1 more abortions per month between April 2020 and December 2021. 

The study also found an increase in medication abortion care and a decrease in abortions after the first trimester.

Rewire News Group spoke with Velarde about what the COVID-19 pandemic revealed about abortion access—and how public health officials and policymakers can........

© Rewire.News