Despite the ruling in Roe v. Wade (1973), states across the U.S. have enacted restrictive abor- tion laws that severely stunted Americans' access to abortion services; the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health (2022) has only amplified the restrictions on abortion access. This paper extends the work of Myers (2023) and uses a novel county-level dataset of abortion counts, travel distances to the nearest abortion providers, and demographic characteristics covering pre- and preliminary post-Dobbs time periods to analyze the effect of increased travel distances to the nearest abortion providers on abortion counts using a fixed effects methodology. This paper's analysis focuses in particular on the most vulnerable women, specifically those with low incomes, who identify as Black or Hispanic, and those with lim- ited college education. My findings reveal a differential impact of the Dobbs decision and the consequent increased travel distances in reducing abortion counts, particularly among these most vulnerable women. In light of these challenges, two policy approaches are proposed, aimed at mitigating disparities in abortion access, first through the implementation of trans- portation vouchers targeting the most vulnerable women–and second through an expansion of telemedicine services to improve access to abortion care, particularly in regions with limited healthcare infrastructure.
Celine Papageorgiou (Mon,) studied this question.
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