On October 20, LifeNews ran this headline: “Alabama Abortions Plummet as Abortion Ban Saves Babies.”

The story says that “in 2025, there were only three abortions reported in Alabama.”

That number is real. The claim built on it is false. Three is the number of abortions done in Alabama facilities. It is not the number of children killed by abortion in Alabama.

The Number in the Fine Print

Read past the headline, and the same article admits what the three leaves out.

Abortion pills mailed into Alabama from other states are not counted. Abortions on Alabama residents in other states are only partly counted. Self-managed abortions are not counted at all.

The Abortion Lobby Is Counting

The missing numbers aren’t pro-life guesses. The radical pro-abortion groups that track abortion pills are publishing them, and they are proud of what they show.

The pro-abortion Society of Family Planning counts how many women in “ban” states are sent abortion pills by doctors protected by shield laws. In Alabama:

  • 2024: 5,610
  • 2025: 8,170

That’s a 46% jump in one year, under a law LifeNews says is saving babies.

The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute tells the same story. It estimates 7,420 abortions in Alabama in 2025 by pills shipped into the state, plus 4,070 more by Alabama residents who traveled to other states.

These groups aren’t hiding the numbers. They publish them to prove their pills are getting past Alabama’s law. LifeNews’s own source, the Charlotte Lozier Institute, reports the same figures. LifeNews put three in the headline anyway.

More Than Before Dobbs

The Foundation to Abolish Abortion brought this data together in its Babies Unprotected report. It counts at least 11,280 known abortions on Alabama residents in 2025:

  • 7,190 by pills mailed into Alabama, after cutting the mail-order count to allow for pills that are never taken
  • 4,090 in other states

In 2019, when abortion clinics were still open in Alabama, the same report counts 7,999.

More Alabama children were killed by abortion in 2025 than in 2019, when abortion clinics were still open in the state.

And 11,280 is the floor. It leaves out self-managed abortions: pills ordered from community networks, overseas sellers and online pill shops, outside any doctor’s care. Nobody counts those. The Foundation to Abolish Abortion estimated 1,834 in the first half of 2023 alone, before mail-order pills from shield-law doctors took over.

Alabama’s Own Leaders Know Better

State Rep. Jamie Kiel told 1819 News that “all abortions in Alabama now as far as we know are by pill and most by out of state or out of country pill manufacturers.”

In June, Attorney General Steve Marshall sent cease-and-desist letters to six companies that ship abortion pills into Alabama. You don’t write to six companies about a problem that happens three times a year.

Both men know the pills are killing Alabama children. Neither has fought for the law that would protect them.

When the Equal Protection Act was filed in 2025, five House members signed on as cosponsors. Rep. Kiel was not one of them.

Attorney General Marshall goes after the companies that sell the pills. But in 2023 he made clear that Alabama law does not allow prosecution for taking them. Cease-and-desist letters treat abortion as a consumer protection problem. Alabama’s homicide law still says killing a preborn child by abortion is not murder, and only the Equal Protection Act changes that.

This isn’t the first time. Earlier this month, LifeNews told readers Kentucky had just three abortions last year. The Foundation to Abolish Abortion showed the real number was more than 7,100.

Headlines like these do real damage to the fight to end abortion.

They tell Christians the job is done. A pro-life Alabamian who reads that abortions “plummeted” to three has no reason to call a legislator, sign a petition or give. Why fight for a law to stop something that has already stopped?

They give legislators cover. Every lawmaker who won’t protect preborn children from abortion pills can point to “three abortions” and say Alabama’s law works. A headline from a pro-life outlet makes the excuse sound like a victory.

They hide the loophole. Alabama’s homicide law protects a preborn child at every stage, then carves abortion out of that protection. A self-managed abortion is still legal in Alabama at any stage of pregnancy. The shield-law doctors who mail the pills know it. They are counting on Alabama never closing that gap. Every story that says the ban is “saving babies” helps keep it open.

Read how the loopholes work.

Each year Alabama waits, thousands more children die by abortion. Comfortable numbers don’t save them. Equal protection does.

What You Can Do

The Equal Protection Act removes abortion from the exceptions to Alabama’s homicide law. It protects every preborn child, no matter where the pill came from.

Ask your legislators before the 2027 session begins: will you cosponsor the Equal Protection Act?

Add your name to the petition to End Abortion in Alabama.

Sources: LifeNews (October 20, 2026), Foundation to Abolish Abortion, Babies Unprotected: 2025 Abortion Numbers Update (September 2026), Foundation to Abolish Abortion on LifeNews and Kentucky (October 8, 2026), Charlotte Lozier Institute, Abortion Reporting: Alabama (2025), 1819 News (September 27, 2025), Alabama Attorney General (June 9, 2026), #WeCount report from the pro-abortion Society of Family Planning, Monthly Abortion Provision Study from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute