It is spring 2020 and Spain is unexpectedly going into one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns. Due to COVID-19, everyday life of Spaniards has come to an abrupt halt. Shops are closed, travel has stopped, and families must stay indoors for many weeks. Amid the well-known consequences—lost jobs, school closures, overflowing hospitals—something less visible is happening too: the number of abortions is falling sharply.
Fast-forward to 2025 — economists Sofia Karina Trommlerová and Libertad González examine what lay behind this unexpected drop. Using detailed administrative records of every abortion in Spain between 2016 and 2020, they show that abortions fell by about 24 percent during the two-month lockdown and remained below previous years’ levels for months afterward.
At first glance, the decline might suggest that women could not reach clinics because of mobility restrictions or overburdened hospitals. But the evidence tells a different story. Abortions fell equally in provinces with and without abortion clinics and also in areas with both high and low COVID-19 hospitalizations. Clinics stayed open, and abortion was classified as essential health care. Unlike some other countries, Spain did not introduce telemedicine abortions, but neither travel restrictions nor hospital congestion explain the sudden drop.
Instead, the key factor was a collapse in unintended pregnancies, especially among women who were not living with a partner. During lockdown, Spanish police enforced strict stay-at-home orders and social contacts were limited to household members. As a result, opportunities for dating and casual relationships almost disappeared. For women who lived alone, this meant fewer chances to conceive. The study finds that abortions among non-cohabiting women dropped about 45 percent more than among women living with a partner. The share of pregnancies ending in abortion—a measure known as the abortion ratio—also fell sharply, again driven entirely by single women.
These findings highlight how the pandemic reshaped intimate life as much as work or schooling. Lockdown policies drastically reduced social and sexual interactions, leading to fewer unplanned pregnancies and, in turn, fewer abortions. In other words, the decline was driven by lower demand for abortion, not by barriers to supply the necessary health care.
What is important is that Spain’s experience differs from that of other countries. Research from Mexico City and parts of the United States found declines in abortions linked mainly to restricted access to abortion services, such as temporary bans on surgical procedures. Spain shows the opposite: even with clinics open, behavior changes alone were enough to produce a sizable effect.
The results carry broader lessons. First, reproductive outcomes respond quickly to changes in social behavior. Policies that reduce mobility—even for a short time—can lower unintended pregnancies within weeks. Second, similar statistics across countries can mask very different causes. A 25 percent drop in abortions might stem from clinic closures in one place and from fewer pregnancies in another.
Finally, the study reminds us that reproductive health is closely tied to the social fabric. When that fabric is suddenly rewoven—as it was in spring 2020—the effects reach far beyond what we can immediately see.
This post is based on “The Impact of COVID-19 on Abortions in Spain,” by Sofia Karina Trommlerová and Libertad González in Population and Development Review (2025).