LANSING, Mich. (Great Lakes News) – Michigan’s abortion rate increased nearly 9 percent in 2020 to its highest level in almost three decades.

Abortion providers and other experts attributed this increase to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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State data shows the increase to 15.8 abortions per 1,000 women in 2019 marked the highest jump in the state’s abortion rate since 2013.

In March 2020, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a flurry of executive orders which shut down businesses and stopped elective surgeries in an attempt to flatten the coronavirus curve. The next month, she explained her reasoning for leaving abortion clinics open by calling those services “life sustaining.”