The problem with abortion deserts: Reframing deserts for feminist solidarity

With the rise of the far right across the world, feminist scholars and activists have been drawn to the language of “abortion deserts” to describe the decimation of reproductive healthcare services. In this paper we argue that while “abortion deserts” is a rhetorically powerful category, it is too often used uncritically in ways that overlook the lived realities of abortion experiences and reproduce colonial hierarchies of expected healthcare access. Definitions of abortion deserts that rely on distance are useful for showing the changing distribution of abortion services but are unable to capture the complexity of burdens to abortion access or the ways in which reproductive geographies are changed by the mobility of abortion pills. Ultimately, we argue that no absolute deserts exist and, while access to reproductive services can become increasingly difficult in challenging socio‐political circumstances, practices of self‐managed abortion and grassroot feminist solidarity disrupt the notion of desert. In the face of the backlash against reproductive rights, a more nuanced understanding of reproductive oppression and feminist resistance is urgently needed.