Travel time, costs for abortions increased after state bans, researchers find
he door stands open to an exam room at a Jacksonville, Fla., abortion clinic in 2024. A new report found travel time and costs for abortion care jumped for residents of states that ban abortions. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Travel costs for abortions and delays in care have increased in the wake of state abortion bans, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health.
Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco surveyed more than 800 people across 14 states that implemented bans on abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that dismantled the constitutional right to abortion.
“Our research shows that the Dobbs decision has increased the cost of abortion and slowed people down, but it hasn’t decreased their determination to get that care,” said Diana Greene Foster, a professor at UCSF and the lead author of the study.
The states covered by the study banned abortion during the research time frame, from June 2022 through June 2024: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
For people from those states, travel time, overnight stays and travel costs associated with seeking an abortion increased after bans were in place, Greene and her colleagues at UCSF’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health program found.
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Travel time for residents from abortion-ban states increased from 2.8 hours to 11.3 hours, compared with abortion access before a ban, and travel costs increased from $179 to $372. More than half of respondents said their abortion care required an overnight hotel stay, compared with 5% before an abortion ban.
About 8 in 10 people who contacted an abortion clinic or call center reported traveling to another state for an abortion, the UCSF researchers found. Just 3% reported continuing their pregnancy to birth.
Last year, 155,000 people traveled out of state for abortion care, according to a June report from the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization focused on advancing reproductive rights.
Currently, 12 states have a total ban on abortion, while four more ban abortion after six weeks’ gestation, before many women know they are pregnant, according to the most recent Guttmacher data.
Republican lawmakers in some states have tried to clamp down on abortion travel in recent years. Idaho and Tennessee have both passed laws that make it a crime to help a pregnant minor travel to get a legal abortion without parental consent, while several other states have considered similar legislation. Most of Idaho’s law has been blocked by a judge, as has Tennessee’s.
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