legalization of abortion research paper

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• Published: 28 June 2021

Impact of abortion law reforms on women’s health services and outcomes: a systematic review protocol

• Foluso Ishola   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8644-0570 1 ,
• U. Vivian Ukah 1 &
• Arijit Nandi 1  

Systematic Reviews volume  10 , Article number:  192 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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A country’s abortion law is a key component in determining the enabling environment for safe abortion. While restrictive abortion laws still prevail in most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), many countries have reformed their abortion laws, with the majority of them moving away from an absolute ban. However, the implications of these reforms on women’s access to and use of health services, as well as their health outcomes, is uncertain. First, there are methodological challenges to the evaluation of abortion laws, since these changes are not exogenous. Second, extant evaluations may be limited in terms of their generalizability, given variation in reforms across the abortion legality spectrum and differences in levels of implementation and enforcement cross-nationally. This systematic review aims to address this gap. Our aim is to systematically collect, evaluate, and synthesize empirical research evidence concerning the impact of abortion law reforms on women’s health services and outcomes in LMICs.

We will conduct a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature on changes in abortion laws and women’s health services and outcomes in LMICs. We will search Medline, Embase, CINAHL, and Web of Science databases, as well as grey literature and reference lists of included studies for further relevant literature. As our goal is to draw inference on the impact of abortion law reforms, we will include quasi-experimental studies examining the impact of change in abortion laws on at least one of our outcomes of interest. We will assess the methodological quality of studies using the quasi-experimental study designs series checklist. Due to anticipated heterogeneity in policy changes, outcomes, and study designs, we will synthesize results through a narrative description.

This review will systematically appraise and synthesize the research evidence on the impact of abortion law reforms on women’s health services and outcomes in LMICs. We will examine the effect of legislative reforms and investigate the conditions that might contribute to heterogeneous effects, including whether specific groups of women are differentially affected by abortion law reforms. We will discuss gaps and future directions for research. Findings from this review could provide evidence on emerging strategies to influence policy reforms, implement abortion services and scale up accessibility.

Systematic review registration

PROSPERO CRD42019126927

Peer Review reports

An estimated 25·1 million unsafe abortions occur each year, with 97% of these in developing countries [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Despite its frequency, unsafe abortion remains a major global public health challenge [ 4 , 5 ]. According to the World health Organization (WHO), nearly 8% of maternal deaths were attributed to unsafe abortion, with the majority of these occurring in developing countries [ 5 , 6 ]. Approximately 7 million women are admitted to hospitals every year due to complications from unsafe abortion such as hemorrhage, infections, septic shock, uterine and intestinal perforation, and peritonitis [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. These often result in long-term effects such as infertility and chronic reproductive tract infections. The annual cost of treating major complications from unsafe abortion is estimated at US$ 232 million each year in developing countries [ 10 , 11 ]. The negative consequences on children’s health, well-being, and development have also been documented. Unsafe abortion increases risk of poor birth outcomes, neonatal and infant mortality [ 12 , 13 ]. Additionally, women who lack access to safe and legal abortion are often forced to continue with unwanted pregnancies, and may not seek prenatal care [ 14 ], which might increase risks of child morbidity and mortality.

Access to safe abortion services is often limited due to a wide range of barriers. Collectively, these barriers contribute to the staggering number of deaths and disabilities seen annually as a result of unsafe abortion, which are disproportionately felt in developing countries [ 15 , 16 , 17 ]. A recent systematic review on the barriers to abortion access in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) implicated the following factors: restrictive abortion laws, lack of knowledge about abortion law or locations that provide abortion, high cost of services, judgmental provider attitudes, scarcity of facilities and medical equipment, poor training and shortage of staff, stigma on social and religious grounds, and lack of decision making power [ 17 ].

An important factor regulating access to abortion is abortion law [ 17 , 18 , 19 ]. Although abortion is a medical procedure, its legal status in many countries has been incorporated in penal codes which specify grounds in which abortion is permitted. These include prohibition in all circumstances, to save the woman’s life, to preserve the woman’s health, in cases of rape, incest, fetal impairment, for economic or social reasons, and on request with no requirement for justification [ 18 , 19 , 20 ].

Although abortion laws in different countries are usually compared based on the grounds under which legal abortions are allowed, these comparisons rarely take into account components of the legal framework that may have strongly restrictive implications, such as regulation of facilities that are authorized to provide abortions, mandatory waiting periods, reporting requirements in cases of rape, limited choice in terms of the method of abortion, and requirements for third-party authorizations [ 19 , 21 , 22 ]. For example, the Zambian Termination of Pregnancy Act permits abortion on socio-economic grounds. It is considered liberal, as it permits legal abortions for more indications than most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa; however, abortions must only be provided in registered hospitals, and three medical doctors—one of whom must be a specialist—must provide signatures to allow the procedure to take place [ 22 ]. Given the critical shortage of doctors in Zambia [ 23 ], this is in fact a major restriction that is only captured by a thorough analysis of the conditions under which abortion services are provided.

Additionally, abortion laws may exist outside the penal codes in some countries, where they are supplemented by health legislation and regulations such as public health statutes, reproductive health acts, court decisions, medical ethic codes, practice guidelines, and general health acts [ 18 , 19 , 24 ]. The diversity of regulatory documents may lead to conflicting directives about the grounds under which abortion is lawful [ 19 ]. For example, in Kenya and Uganda, standards and guidelines on the reduction of morbidity and mortality due to unsafe abortion supported by the constitution was contradictory to the penal code, leaving room for an ambiguous interpretation of the legal environment [ 25 ].

Regulations restricting the range of abortion methods from which women can choose, including medication abortion in particular, may also affect abortion access [ 26 , 27 ]. A literature review contextualizing medication abortion in seven African countries reported that incidence of medication abortion is low despite being a safe, effective, and low-cost abortion method, likely due to legal restrictions on access to the medications [ 27 ].

Over the past two decades, many LMICs have reformed their abortion laws [ 3 , 28 ]. Most have expanded the grounds on which abortion may be performed legally, while very few have restricted access. Countries like Uruguay, South Africa, and Portugal have amended their laws to allow abortion on request in the first trimester of pregnancy [ 29 , 30 ]. Conversely, in Nicaragua, a law to ban all abortion without any exception was introduced in 2006 [ 31 ].

Progressive reforms are expected to lead to improvements in women’s access to safe abortion and health outcomes, including reductions in the death and disabilities that accompany unsafe abortion, and reductions in stigma over the longer term [ 17 , 29 , 32 ]. However, abortion law reforms may yield different outcomes even in countries that experience similar reforms, as the legislative processes that are associated with changing abortion laws take place in highly distinct political, economic, religious, and social contexts [ 28 , 33 ]. This variation may contribute to abortion law reforms having different effects with respect to the health services and outcomes that they are hypothesized to influence [ 17 , 29 ].

Extant empirical literature has examined changes in abortion-related morbidity and mortality, contraceptive usage, fertility, and other health-related outcomes following reforms to abortion laws [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ]. For example, a study in Mexico reported that a policy that decriminalized and subsidized early-term elective abortion led to substantial reductions in maternal morbidity and that this was particularly strong among vulnerable populations such as young and socioeconomically disadvantaged women [ 38 ].

To the best of our knowledge, however, the growing literature on the impact of abortion law reforms on women’s health services and outcomes has not been systematically reviewed. A study by Benson et al. evaluated evidence on the impact of abortion policy reforms on maternal death in three countries, Romania, South Africa, and Bangladesh, where reforms were immediately followed by strategies to implement abortion services, scale up accessibility, and establish complementary reproductive and maternal health services [ 39 ]. The three countries highlighted in this paper provided unique insights into implementation and practical application following law reforms, in spite of limited resources. However, the review focused only on a selection of countries that have enacted similar reforms and it is unclear if its conclusions are more widely generalizable.

Accordingly, the primary objective of this review is to summarize studies that have estimated the causal effect of a change in abortion law on women’s health services and outcomes. Additionally, we aim to examine heterogeneity in the impacts of abortion reforms, including variation across specific population sub-groups and contexts (e.g., due to variations in the intensity of enforcement and service delivery). Through this review, we aim to offer a higher-level view of the impact of abortion law reforms in LMICs, beyond what can be gained from any individual study, and to thereby highlight patterns in the evidence across studies, gaps in current research, and to identify promising programs and strategies that could be adapted and applied more broadly to increase access to safe abortion services.

The review protocol has been reported using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) guidelines [ 40 ] (Additional file 1 ). It was registered in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) database CRD42019126927.

Eligibility criteria

Types of studies.

This review will consider quasi-experimental studies which aim to estimate the causal effect of a change in a specific law or reform and an outcome, but in which participants (in this case jurisdictions, whether countries, states/provinces, or smaller units) are not randomly assigned to treatment conditions [ 41 ]. Eligible designs include the following:

Pretest-posttest designs where the outcome is compared before and after the reform, as well as nonequivalent groups designs, such as pretest-posttest design that includes a comparison group, also known as a controlled before and after (CBA) designs.

Interrupted time series (ITS) designs where the trend of an outcome after an abortion law reform is compared to a counterfactual (i.e., trends in the outcome in the post-intervention period had the jurisdiction not enacted the reform) based on the pre-intervention trends and/or a control group [ 42 , 43 ].

Differences-in-differences (DD) designs, which compare the before vs. after change in an outcome in jurisdictions that experienced an abortion law reform to the corresponding change in the places that did not experience such a change, under the assumption of parallel trends [ 44 , 45 ].

Synthetic controls (SC) approaches, which use a weighted combination of control units that did not experience the intervention, selected to match the treated unit in its pre-intervention outcome trend, to proxy the counterfactual scenario [ 46 , 47 ].

Regression discontinuity (RD) designs, which in the case of eligibility for abortion services being determined by the value of a continuous random variable, such as age or income, would compare the distributions of post-intervention outcomes for those just above and below the threshold [ 48 ].

There is heterogeneity in the terminology and definitions used to describe quasi-experimental designs, but we will do our best to categorize studies into the above groups based on their designs, identification strategies, and assumptions.

Our focus is on quasi-experimental research because we are interested in studies evaluating the effect of population-level interventions (i.e., abortion law reform) with a design that permits inference regarding the causal effect of abortion legislation, which is not possible from other types of observational designs such as cross-sectional studies, cohort studies or case-control studies that lack an identification strategy for addressing sources of unmeasured confounding (e.g., secular trends in outcomes). We are not excluding randomized studies such as randomized controlled trials, cluster randomized trials, or stepped-wedge cluster-randomized trials; however, we do not expect to identify any relevant randomized studies given that abortion policy is unlikely to be randomly assigned. Since our objective is to provide a summary of empirical studies reporting primary research, reviews/meta-analyses, qualitative studies, editorials, letters, book reviews, correspondence, and case reports/studies will also be excluded.

Our population of interest includes women of reproductive age (15–49 years) residing in LMICs, as the policy exposure of interest applies primarily to women who have a demand for sexual and reproductive health services including abortion.

Intervention

The intervention in this study refers to a change in abortion law or policy, either from a restrictive policy to a non-restrictive or less restrictive one, or vice versa. This can, for example, include a change from abortion prohibition in all circumstances to abortion permissible in other circumstances, such as to save the woman’s life, to preserve the woman’s health, in cases of rape, incest, fetal impairment, for economic or social reasons, or on request with no requirement for justification. It can also include the abolition of existing abortion policies or the introduction of new policies including those occurring outside the penal code, which also have legal standing, such as:

National constitutions;

Supreme court decisions, as well as higher court decisions;

Customary or religious law, such as interpretations of Muslim law;

Medical ethical codes; and

Regulatory standards and guidelines governing the provision of abortion.

We will also consider national and sub-national reforms, although we anticipate that most reforms will operate at the national level.

The comparison group represents the counterfactual scenario, specifically the level and/or trend of a particular post-intervention outcome in the treated jurisdiction that experienced an abortion law reform had it, counter to the fact, not experienced this specific intervention. Comparison groups will vary depending on the type of quasi-experimental design. These may include outcome trends after abortion reform in the same country, as in the case of an interrupted time series design without a control group, or corresponding trends in countries that did not experience a change in abortion law, as in the case of the difference-in-differences design.

Outcome measures

Primary outcomes.

Access to abortion services: There is no consensus on how to measure access but we will use the following indicators, based on the relevant literature [ 49 ]: [ 1 ] the availability of trained staff to provide care, [ 2 ] facilities are geographically accessible such as distance to providers, [ 3 ] essential equipment, supplies and medications, [ 4 ] services provided regardless of woman’s ability to pay, [ 5 ] all aspects of abortion care are explained to women, [ 6 ] whether staff offer respectful care, [ 7 ] if staff work to ensure privacy, [ 8 ] if high-quality, supportive counseling is provided, [ 9 ] if services are offered in a timely manner, and [ 10 ] if women have the opportunity to express concerns, ask questions, and receive answers.

Use of abortion services refers to induced pregnancy termination, including medication abortion and number of women treated for abortion-related complications.

Secondary outcomes

Current use of any method of contraception refers to women of reproductive age currently using any method contraceptive method.

Future use of contraception refers to women of reproductive age who are not currently using contraception but intend to do so in the future.

Demand for family planning refers to women of reproductive age who are currently using, or whose sexual partner is currently using, at least one contraceptive method.

Unmet need for family planning refers to women of reproductive age who want to stop or delay childbearing but are not using any method of contraception.

Fertility rate refers to the average number of children born to women of childbearing age.

Neonatal morbidity and mortality refer to disability or death of newborn babies within the first 28 days of life.

Maternal morbidity and mortality refer to disability or death due to complications from pregnancy or childbirth.

There will be no language, date, or year restrictions on studies included in this systematic review.

Studies have to be conducted in a low- and middle-income country. We will use the country classification specified in the World Bank Data Catalogue to identify LMICs (Additional file 2 ).

Search methods

We will perform searches for eligible peer-reviewed studies in the following electronic databases.

Ovid MEDLINE(R) (from 1946 to present)

Embase Classic+Embase on OvidSP (from 1947 to present)

CINAHL (1973 to present); and

Web of Science (1900 to present)

The reference list of included studies will be hand searched for additional potentially relevant citations. Additionally, a grey literature search for reports or working papers will be done with the help of Google and Social Science Research Network (SSRN).

Search strategy

A search strategy, based on the eligibility criteria and combining subject indexing terms (i.e., MeSH) and free-text search terms in the title and abstract fields, will be developed for each electronic database. The search strategy will combine terms related to the interventions of interest (i.e., abortion law/policy), etiology (i.e., impact/effect), and context (i.e., LMICs) and will be developed with the help of a subject matter librarian. We opted not to specify outcomes in the search strategy in order to maximize the sensitivity of our search. See Additional file 3 for a draft of our search strategy.

Data collection and analysis

Data management.

Search results from all databases will be imported into Endnote reference manager software (Version X9, Clarivate Analytics) where duplicate records will be identified and excluded using a systematic, rigorous, and reproducible method that utilizes a sequential combination of fields including author, year, title, journal, and pages. Rayyan systematic review software will be used to manage records throughout the review [ 50 ].

Selection process

Two review authors will screen titles and abstracts and apply the eligibility criteria to select studies for full-text review. Reference lists of any relevant articles identified will be screened to ensure no primary research studies are missed. Studies in a language different from English will be translated by collaborators who are fluent in the particular language. If no such expertise is identified, we will use Google Translate [ 51 ]. Full text versions of potentially relevant articles will be retrieved and assessed for inclusion based on study eligibility criteria. Discrepancies will be resolved by consensus or will involve a third reviewer as an arbitrator. The selection of studies, as well as reasons for exclusions of potentially eligible studies, will be described using a PRISMA flow chart.

Data extraction

Data extraction will be independently undertaken by two authors. At the conclusion of data extraction, these two authors will meet with the third author to resolve any discrepancies. A piloted standardized extraction form will be used to extract the following information: authors, date of publication, country of study, aim of study, policy reform year, type of policy reform, data source (surveys, medical records), years compared (before and after the reform), comparators (over time or between groups), participant characteristics (age, socioeconomic status), primary and secondary outcomes, evaluation design, methods used for statistical analysis (regression), estimates reported (means, rates, proportion), information to assess risk of bias (sensitivity analyses), sources of funding, and any potential conflicts of interest.

Risk of bias and quality assessment

Two independent reviewers with content and methodological expertise in methods for policy evaluation will assess the methodological quality of included studies using the quasi-experimental study designs series risk of bias checklist [ 52 ]. This checklist provides a list of criteria for grading the quality of quasi-experimental studies that relate directly to the intrinsic strength of the studies in inferring causality. These include [ 1 ] relevant comparison, [ 2 ] number of times outcome assessments were available, [ 3 ] intervention effect estimated by changes over time for the same or different groups, [ 4 ] control of confounding, [ 5 ] how groups of individuals or clusters were formed (time or location differences), and [ 6 ] assessment of outcome variables. Each of the following domains will be assigned a “yes,” “no,” or “possibly” bias classification. Any discrepancies will be resolved by consensus or a third reviewer with expertise in review methodology if required.

Confidence in cumulative evidence

The strength of the body of evidence will be assessed using the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system [ 53 ].

Data synthesis

We anticipate that risk of bias and heterogeneity in the studies included may preclude the use of meta-analyses to describe pooled effects. This may necessitate the presentation of our main findings through a narrative description. We will synthesize the findings from the included articles according to the following key headings:

Information on the differential aspects of the abortion policy reforms.

Information on the types of study design used to assess the impact of policy reforms.

Information on main effects of abortion law reforms on primary and secondary outcomes of interest.

Information on heterogeneity in the results that might be due to differences in study designs, individual-level characteristics, and contextual factors.

Potential meta-analysis

If outcomes are reported consistently across studies, we will construct forest plots and synthesize effect estimates using meta-analysis. Statistical heterogeneity will be assessed using the I 2 test where I 2 values over 50% indicate moderate to high heterogeneity [ 54 ]. If studies are sufficiently homogenous, we will use fixed effects. However, if there is evidence of heterogeneity, a random effects model will be adopted. Summary measures, including risk ratios or differences or prevalence ratios or differences will be calculated, along with 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Analysis of subgroups

If there are sufficient numbers of included studies, we will perform sub-group analyses according to type of policy reform, geographical location and type of participant characteristics such as age groups, socioeconomic status, urban/rural status, education, or marital status to examine the evidence for heterogeneous effects of abortion laws.

Sensitivity analysis

Sensitivity analyses will be conducted if there are major differences in quality of the included articles to explore the influence of risk of bias on effect estimates.

Meta-biases

If available, studies will be compared to protocols and registers to identify potential reporting bias within studies. If appropriate and there are a sufficient number of studies included, funnel plots will be generated to determine potential publication bias.

This systematic review will synthesize current evidence on the impact of abortion law reforms on women’s health. It aims to identify which legislative reforms are effective, for which population sub-groups, and under which conditions.

Potential limitations may include the low quality of included studies as a result of suboptimal study design, invalid assumptions, lack of sensitivity analysis, imprecision of estimates, variability in results, missing data, and poor outcome measurements. Our review may also include a limited number of articles because we opted to focus on evidence from quasi-experimental study design due to the causal nature of the research question under review. Nonetheless, we will synthesize the literature, provide a critical evaluation of the quality of the evidence and discuss the potential effects of any limitations to our overall conclusions. Protocol amendments will be recorded and dated using the registration for this review on PROSPERO. We will also describe any amendments in our final manuscript.

Synthesizing available evidence on the impact of abortion law reforms represents an important step towards building our knowledge base regarding how abortion law reforms affect women’s health services and health outcomes; we will provide evidence on emerging strategies to influence policy reforms, implement abortion services, and scale up accessibility. This review will be of interest to service providers, policy makers and researchers seeking to improve women’s access to safe abortion around the world.

Abbreviations

Cumulative index to nursing and allied health literature

Excerpta medica database

Low- and middle-income countries

Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols

International prospective register of systematic reviews

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Ishola, F., Ukah, U.V. & Nandi, A. Impact of abortion law reforms on women’s health services and outcomes: a systematic review protocol. Syst Rev 10 , 192 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-021-01739-w

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Knowledge and attitude of women towards the legalization of abortion in the selected town of Ethiopia: a cross sectional study

• Tilahun Fufa Debela 1 &
• Misgun Shewangizaw Mekuria 2  

Reproductive Health volume  15 , Article number:  190 ( 2018 ) Cite this article

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Unsafe abortion contributes to maternal deaths 13% globally and 25–35% of Ethiopia. By considering the problem of unsafe abortion, Ethiopia amended a law that permits abortion under certain circumstances. However, the country liberalized the service, women are still not using it. Therefore, the possible reason might be a lack of knowledge and attitude is a barrier that hinders women to use safe abortion.

A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in Arba Minch town from January 02 to 17, 2017. Women in the reproductive age groups (15–49) who reside in the town for more than six months were included in the study. The sample size was determined using a single population proportion formula. Five kebeles were selected using the lottery method from 11 kebeles. The proportional allocation of the sample was done for each kebeles. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Binary and multiple logistic analyses were carried out to identify factors associated with knowledge & attitude toward legalization of abortion.

A total of 576 women were responded to the question. The finding of our study showed that only 23.4% of women have knowledge about the legalization of abortion. Of all the respondents 323(56%) prefer abortion on demand to be legalized while about 241 (41.9%) do not prefer to be legalized. Again about 57% of women believe that women can use it but the rest 43% believe even if allowed women do not use it. From all participants, 59% don’t want to use by themselves and also, 53.3% don’t think that women would have the right to use the service or terminate their pregnancy even if the pregnancy fulfill the criteria. Ethnicity, marital status, and family size were the factors significantly associated with knowledge. Again, educational status, marital status and having knowledge about the legalization of abortion were a statistically significant association with the attitude.

The study indicated that knowledge of women toward the legalization of abortion was low but more than half of respondents prefer abortion on demand to be legalized.

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Plain English summary

Unsafe abortion contributes about 13% of the global burden of maternal mortality and up to 25–35% of maternal deaths in Ethiopia. Sixty nine percent of Ethiopian women who experienced termination of pregnancy used unsafe abortion practices.

The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge and attitude of women towards legalization of abortion and its associated factors. The data were collected voluntarily and women who were critically ill, unable to talk or listen were excluded from the study. To measure knowledge; first, we asked whether women were aware the current abortion law of Ethiopia; if they answered yes, we continued to ask the legal prerequisites in Ethiopia to interrupt pregnancy. Knowledge of women toward the legalization of abortion was measured by seven closed-ended questions. The answers for the seven questions were aggregated out of seven. Those respondents who score above the median knowledge level (median knowledge score = 4) were considered as having good knowledge and those who score less than the median score were classified as having poor knowledge toward abortion legislation.

The attitude of women toward abortion legislation was measured by asking five closed-ended questions with both positive and negative responses. Those women who agreed or answer positively, considered as positive attitude and those respondents disagreed or negatively responded were considered as a negative attitude.

Of the 576 respondents: only 23.4% of women have good knowledge and 56% prefer abortion on demand to be legalized. Forty-three percent of women do not want to use the service even if it was legalized. And, 53.3% of women don’t think that women would have the right to use the service even if the pregnancy fulfills the legal criteria. Knowledge of abortion legislation differs among ethnic group, marital status, and households with different family size. Again, level of education, marital status, and knowledge of women about legislation of abortion were the associated factors for the attitude of women.

In conclusion, knowledge of women toward the legalization of abortion was low but more than half of respondents prefer abortion on demand to be legalized.

Maternal mortality is a public health problem in the world, especially in developing countries. Each year more than half a million maternal death happen in the world. From this, 99% occur in developing countries [ 1 ]. Sub Saharan Africa and South Asian alone accounts for 84% global maternal deaths [ 2 , 3 ]. There are many factors contributing to maternal deaths, from these hemorrhages, infection during and after delivery and also unsafe abortion are among the leading cause of maternal death [ 4 ]. Unsafe abortion alone contributes about 13% of the global burden of maternal mortality [ 5 ]. According to World Health Organization, every year greater than 42 million pregnancies are terminated due to various reasons; from that, approximately 20 million are due to unsafe abortions and it is estimated about 80, 000 worldwide deaths from it [ 6 , 7 ].

In Ethiopia, the number of maternal deaths associated with complication of pregnancy and delivery is among the highest in the world [ 5 ]. In Ethiopia, the ratio of maternal mortality (MMR) is 412 per 100,000 live births [ 8 ]. Several studies indicate that unsafe abortion accounts for up to 25–35% of maternal deaths in Ethiopia [ 9 , 10 ]. Unsafe abortion complication found to be significant public health problems in Ethiopia, accounting for the higher proportion of maternal morbidity, mortality and gynaecological admissions [ 7 ]. It can be prevented and reduced by expanding and improving family planning services and choices. With a low modern contraceptive prevalence rate (4.8%) and a high total fertility rate (6.8–7%), a large number of Ethiopian women faced unwanted pregnancies [ 5 ]. Sixty nine percent of Ethiopian women who experienced termination of pregnancy used unsafe abortion practices rather than medically supervised abortion [ 2 , 5 ]. The reason behind might be the lack of knowledge and attitude of women toward the legalization of abortion.

Ethiopia amended abortion law in May 2005 under certain conditions. Abortion is now legal in cases of rape, incest or fetal impairment. In addition, a woman can legally terminate a pregnancy if her life or physical health is in danger, if she has physical or mental disabilities, or if she is a minor who is physically or mentally unprepared for childbirth [ 9 , 11 , 12 ].

Knowledge about abortion law among women is very important because it has implications for access to legal abortion services [ 13 ]. As outlined in the WHO guideline on safe abortion, the proportion of women with correct knowledge of the legal status of abortion are both indicators for measuring access to information about safe abortion [ 14 ]. Even when safe, legal abortion services are available, women who lack accurate information about the law may seek unsafe abortion because they do not know that they are eligible for the service or do not know the legal requirements for obtaining an abortion [ 15 ]. Knowledge alone is not guarantee to use any service; but the attitude determines.

Research on knowledge of abortion law and attitude of women towards the law may help to inform policy makers and education planners in Ethiopia. Unfortunately, not much research has been conducted in this area among the women in the country. The aim of this study was to investigate knowledge and attitude of women toward the abortion law. Furthermore this study also identifies the associated factors influencing knowledge and attitude of women toward the legalization abortion.

Study design and setting

A community based cross-sectional study design was conduct from January 02 to 17, 2017 in Arba Minch town. The Town is found 465 km from Addis Ababa (the capital city of Ethiopia) to the south. The town has 11 kebeles (the lower administrative unit of Ethiopia). According to population projection of the 2007 national census conducted by the central statistics agency of Ethiopia (CSA), there was an estimated population of 110,104 of whom 53,951 were men and 56,153 were women. From this, 21,360 were reproductive age women. There were 19,000 households in the town during the data collection period.

Study participants

The study population was women in reproductive-age who were living in the town for more than six months in the randomly selected kebeles of the town. The data were collected voluntarily and women who were critically ill, unable to talk or listen were excluded from the study.

Sample size and sampling method

The required sample size was determined using a single population proportion formula. The assumptions considered were; proportion (p) of 50%, a margin error of 5%, a design effect of 1.5 and none response rate of 10%. Accordingly, the sample size was: n = (1.96) 2  × 0.5 (1–0.5)/ (0.05) 2 ; n  = 384, and by considering 10% no response rate and a design effect of 1.5 the total sample size was 633. A multistage sampling technique was used. Five kebeles out of 11 kebeles were randomly selected using the lottery method. List of reproductive age women was extracted from a community-based intervention for action (CBIA) data in the selected kebeles which were collected by health extension workers. The calculated sample size was proportionally allocated to each kebele. To have individual study subjects, systematic sampling method was employed during data collection with K value of 4 ( N  = 2591 and n  = 633 i.e. every 4th from the registration). The first woman was selected by lottery method.

Data collection procedure

Data were collected using field-tested structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed after reviewing related literatures. The questionnaire has different sessions such as socio-demographic characteristics of respondents, 7 abortion history items, 5 attitude items and 7 items on knowledge questions. The questionnaire prepared in English was translated to Amharic (local language) and back to English in order to maintain consistency. Five data collectors those speak the local language (Amharic) collected the data with two supervisors.

Data analysis

Data were entered into EpiData v3.1, exported to SPSS version 21 and cleaned to check for completeness and missing values. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies and summary statistics were used to describe the study population in relation to relevant variables. In binary logistic regression, both bivariate and multivariate analyses were carried out. All variables were entered into the bivariate analysis to identify the association between dependent and independent variables. Those explanatory variables with a p -value < 0.25 in the crude analysis had been used for multivariate analysis. In multivariate analysis, those variables with the p-value < 0.05 were considered as predictors of the legalization of abortion care.

Measurements

Knowledge of abortion legalization was measured by asking seven abortion legislation questions. Questions were developed based on reviewing the Ethiopian legislation for abortion and other similar studies [ 10 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. First, women asked whether they aware about the current abortion law of Ethiopia; if the woman answered yes, we continued to ask the legal prerequisites in Ethiopia to interrupt pregnancy to know their knowledge level. To assess knowledge of the abortion law, seven closed-ended questions were used. The answers for these seven questions were aggregated out of seven. Those respondents who score above the median knowledge level (median knowledge score = 4) were considered as having good knowledge and those who score less than the mean score were classified as having poor knowledge of abortion legislation.

The attitude of women toward abortion legislation was measured by asking five closed-ended questions with both positive and negative responses. Those women who agreed or answer positively, considered as a positive attitude and those respondents disagreed or negatively responded were considered as a negative attitude.

Data quality management

The questionnaires were pretested outside the study area. After the pretest, the questionnaire was reviewed for appropriateness of wording; clarity of both contents and whether instructions elicited is going with responses. Data collectors were trained for one day to be familiar with the data collection tool. Editing and sorting of the questionnaires were done to determine the completeness and consistency of data every day during the data collection. The completed questionnaires were cross-checked and made a correction on daily basis.

Socio-demographic characteristics

A total of 576 women were interviewed from five kebeles. The overall response rate was 91%. One hundred sixty seven (29%) of the respondents were in the age group of 35–39 with the mean age of 34.48 + 5.43. Forty-five percent of women were Gamo in ethnicity while 27.9% were Konso. One hundred sixty six (28.9%) of study participants were attended primary school. Two hundred sixty two (45.6%) and 246 (42.7%) were followers of protestant and Orthodox religions, respectively. Two hundred forty seven (69%) of the mothers are currently living with their husband. One hundred seventy-three (30%) of the study participants were government workers. Two hundred thirty two (40.4%) of the respondents earn monthly income of greater than 1500 Ethiopian Birr (27 Ethiopian Birr = 1 USD). Three hundred eighteen (55.2%) of the respondents had family size of 3–6 (Table  1 ).

Abortion history

Among women included in the study 476(82.6%) had ever pregnant while 159(27.6%) had the history of unwanted pregnancy. One hundred twenty five (21.6%) of respondents have had induced abortion. From the total study participants about ninety two (73.5%) use private health institution as the place of abortion. Two hundred seventy one (47.1%) of women want to continue if they had unwanted pregnancy; while 158 (27.6%) women desire to terminate. Among the respondents, 372 (64.6%) were using family planning (Table  2 ).

The attitude of women toward legalization of abortion

Among women included in the study 323(56%) prefer abortion on demand to be legalized while 241 (41.9%) do not prefer to be legalized. Out of the respondents 327 (56.8%) were think that if abortion is legally allowed people can use the service. Three hundred forty (59%) of respondents do not use the service by themselves if abortion is legally allowed and 308(53.4%) also do not think that woman have the right to terminate their pregnancy. Two hundred seventy (46.8%) do not agree if women decided for some reason to terminate their pregnancy (Table  3 ).

Knowledge of respondents toward legalization of abortion

Among the women included in the study 187 (32.5%) had ever heard about safe abortion while 389(67.5%) had none. Out of respondents who had ever heard about save abortion 107(19%) were heard from their friends. Three hundred ninety six (69%) of respondents didn’t know about the complication of abortion while only 180(31%) knew. From the respondents only 135(23.4%) of women knew whether abortion was legal in Ethiopia but, majorities (67%) of respondents did not knew. From those respondents who knew about legalization of abortion in Ethiopia, 108(80%), 80(59%), 114(84.4%) and 18(13%) mentioned that abortion is legal if it is by incest, has a problem on mother; by rape and mother didn’t want respectively. One hundred seventeen (86.7%) of respondents believe that abortion was decided by women themselves while 18(13.3%) of them by doctor /health professionals. According to 93(69%) of respondents the time of abortion was before 3 months of pregnancy (Table  4 ).

Factors associated with attitude toward legalization of abortion

All predictors of attitude toward legalization of abortion were entered into a logistic regression model and the final associated factors were identified. From those entered into the model, marital status, educational, pregnancy termination history and knowledge were statistically significant that affect the attitude of women toward legalization of abortion. The study revealed that single women and divorced were 81.9 and 93.1% times less likely had a good attitude as compared to married (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) = .181, 95% Confidence Interval(CI): 0.377–0. 087) and (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) =0.069, 95% Confidence Interval(CI): 0.062–0.460) respectively.

The attitude toward legalization of abortion among women who attend primary school was 3.666 times (AOR = 3.666, 95% CI: 1.772–7.581) and 3.431 times (AOR = 3.431, 95% CI: 1.083–10.87) more likely compare to those who attended higher education. Again, those who were illiterate and read & write were 4.804 and 11.258 times more likely good attitude than higher education (AOR = 4.804 and 11.26, 95%CI:1.453, 15.881 and 4.49, 28.227) respectively. Knowledge is a factor for attitude toward legalization of abortion. Those who answer, currently abortion on demand is illegal in Ethiopia 77.6% times (AOR = 0.224, 95% CI: .123–.409) less likely had a good attitude than those who answered I don’t know. But those who know abortion on demand is legal in Ethiopia were 1.84 times (AOR = 1.84, 95% CI: 1.137–2.976) more likely good attitude than those who don’t know (Table  5 ).

Factors associated with knowledge toward legalization of abortion

All predictors of knowledge toward legalization of abortion were entered into a logistic regression model and the final associated factors were identified. From those entered into the model, marital status, ethnicity and family size were statistically significant for knowledge. The knowledge of women who were Konso, Wolaita and those who were other in ethnicity was 93, 86 and 95.3% less likely more knowledgeable about the legalization of abortion compared to women who were Gamo in ethnicity respectively. The study revealed that single women were about 95.5% times (AOR = .045, 95% CI: .013–0. 158) less likely good knowledge as compared to married women and also the knowledge among divorced were 99.2% times (AOR = 0.008, 95% CI: 0.002–0.040) less likely compared to who married. Similarly, women who have less than 3 and more than 6 children were about 71.5 and 59.6% times (AOR = 0.285, 95% CI: 0.145–0.561) and (AOR = 0.404, 95% CI: 0.174–0.939) less likely had knowledge than those who have 3–6 children respectively (Table  6 ).

The finding of our study showed that knowledge of women toward legalization of abortion was 23.4% which is low. The result was lower than study done in other part of the country. The study from Harari town revealed that about 35.7% of female students have knowledge towards the legislation of abortion. Again, the finding was much lower than the study done in Debra Markos hospital which was 92% [ 1 ]. Also, lower than the study conducted in other countries. The result was lower than study result in South Africa and Armenia which was 32% in South Africa [ 19 ] and 31% of women knew that, abortion is legal under any condition in Armenia [ 13 ]. The possible difference might be the difference in socio economic condition. But, the finding of this study was higher than study done in Zambia and Nepal. In Zambia the result was 16% [ 11 ]. In Nepal, from 1100 rural married women, only 15% knew about abortion law [ 13 ]. These findings clearly showed that the majority of women did not get information on their own affairs. Lack of knowledge is the result of lack of information. The causes of lower knowledge in the study area might be due to poor information dissemination to the target community. The result of systematic review showed that women who have knowledge of the legal status of abortion were less than 50% [ 20 ]. But, a study done in Latvia showed that more than half (53%) of women knew about the legalization of abortion [ 10 , 19 , 21 ]. In contradiction, this result was much higher than study done in Mizan Aman town of Ethiopia which was only 5.7% knew about the legalization of abortion [ 22 ]. This might be due to information dissemination problem throughout the country.

From those women who have good knowledge on the legalization of abortion majorities (84%) and (80%) of them believe it is legal if pregnancy was from rape/incest and from relative respectively. More than half (59%) of women, believes abortion is legal if it has problem on mothers as well as only 13% believe it is legally allowed for the mother if she don’t want.

Concerning the attitude of women; more than half of the respondents had a good attitude toward the abortion legalization while 42% do not. The result was consistent with the study done in the Mizan Aman town in which the attitude of women toward the legalization of abortion was 54.4% [ 22 ]. But, the result was somewhat higher than study done in Armenia and Debra Markos hospital which was 30 and 23% respectively [ 1 , 13 ]. This difference might be due to the reality of the problem in the community. In Ethiopia, act of abortion has condemned almost by all religion and cultures. But, condemnation alone might not bring solution. More than half (57%) of the participants believe if service become legal, women can use the service but, 59% of women don’t think they will use by themselves even if abortion would be legal in Ethiopia. Almost half (53.3%) of respondents don’t think that women would have the right to terminate their pregnancy if the pregnancy fulfills the criteria. Again about 47% do not agree if women decided to terminate their pregnancy in any case. Therefore, the result showed that the majority (56%) of women had a positive attitude toward the legalization of abortion; but still large proportion of women have negative attitude toward the legalization of abortion. This perception of the community shows still need an intervention. In Ethiopia, since 2004 abortion has been legalized under some circumstances. But only less than 6% used public health facilities and about 73% uses private clinics in this finding; the possible reason might be the low knowledge and problem related to the attitude. Changing community knowledge and attitudes might be challenging; particularly when the topic is stigmatized. Additional intervention be needed to improve access to safe abortion service and other reproductive services for women at the community level.

Nearly 40 years after India legalized abortion, Indian women continue to be unaware that safe abortion service was given at public health facilities or was unable to access it. Although abortion has been legal in India for decades, unsafe abortions were estimated to be 90% [ 18 ]. The underlying reason might be the attitude related to the issue. In our case, East Africa, in particular, has one of the world’s highest rates of maternal mortality linked to complications from unsafe abortions. Over 50% of all women seeking abortions in Ethiopia do so outside the reach of trained medical professionals and outside of health facilities even after the legalization of safe abortion service [ 6 ]. The reason might be due to stigma and the wrong belief of the community toward abortion which enforces women to choose secrecy over safety.

In our study, ethnicity, marital status and family size were the socio demographic factors significantly associated with knowledge. For attitude, marital statuses, level of education as well as knowledge were associated factors. The same with the study done in Debra Markos hospital and Mizan Aman town where the knowledge was the associated factors [ 1 , 22 ].This result was in line with the study done in Harari and Zambia; where age, religion and marital status were a factor, but in our study age and religion were not significant [ 11 , 21 ]. But, accessibility to abortion service was a factor for legalization of abortion in Zambia but not in our case [ 11 ]. Again study done in Mizan Aman town, the preference of termination was a factor for the knowledge of abortion; but here in our study it was not an associated factor [ 22 ].

The study showed that educational status, marital status and having knowledge about the legalization of abortion has a statistically significant association with an attitude. The result was in line with the study conducted in Mizan Aman town and Yirgalem south nation nationality of Ethiopia and other parts of Africa [ 11 , 12 , 19 ].

In conclusion, our study indicated that knowledge of women about the legalization of abortion was low and more than half of women had positive attitude to the legalization of abortion. But, still immense proportion of women (42%) have negative attitude toward the legalization of abortion. Moreover, Ethnicity, marital status, and the number of children were strong predictors of knowledge while education, history of pregnancy termination and knowledge were the predictor of attitude toward legalization of abortion. Thus, it was recommended that the concerned body should give attention to awareness creation and give comprehensive health education and information should be given on a local basis.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to acknowledge our study participants for providing the necessary information and the data collectors for collecting the data carefully.

The data collection process of this study was funded by the Arba Minch University for the support of the data collection. The funding body only followed the process to confirm whether the fund allocated was used for the proposed research.

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Debela, T.F., Mekuria, M.S. Knowledge and attitude of women towards the legalization of abortion in the selected town of Ethiopia: a cross sectional study. Reprod Health 15 , 190 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12978-018-0634-0

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• Published: 25 April 2024

Reproductive rights in the United States: acquiescence is not a strategy

• Laura J. Esserman 1 &
• Douglas Yee   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3387-4009 2  

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Scientific and medical conferences should not be held in states that ban abortion, as such bans put the lives of women at risk.

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It has been over a year since the US Supreme Court decided that women have no constitutional right to abortion and returned the issue to individual states. Although the majority of US citizens support a woman’s right to decide to terminate a pregnancy, 16 of the 50 US states have now essentially eliminated access to abortion.

As physicians engaged in women’s health, we maintain that abortion is a part of healthcare and that restricting access to abortion further exacerbates healthcare disparities. Bans have a negative impact on women’s health and can lead to lethal complications associated with pregnancy and inappropriate management of failed pregnancy, and risk worse outcomes for health conditions including breast and other cancers 1 .

We, and others 2 , have urged our fellow physicians and scientists not to attend meetings in states that have abortion bans and that subject healthcare providers to criminal prosecution for helping a woman obtain an abortion. We further call on medical societies to refrain from hosting conferences in states that restrict access to reproductive health services and move these conferences to states that fully recognize and support the rights of women and their healthcare providers.

We do not take these actions lightly. Since our original letter on this topic appeared, we have received both positive feedback and criticism 3 . Several have argued that science should not mix with politics and therefore this is not ‘our issue’. We could not agree more about mixing science and healthcare with politics. However, if politicians pass laws dictating what care should be delivered in the exam room, then physicians must advocate for scientific and medical evidence using all methods available to influence that legislation. Politicians are putting ideology ahead of women’s health.

Criminal offense

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health decision, at least 16 states have introduced laws making abortion illegal, some with few or no exceptions based on medical need, including the life of the mother. Some have even begun to track women who leave those states seeking services in places where abortion remains legal. In some states, it is now a criminal offense for individuals and medical professionals to play any part in helping a woman have or obtain an abortion. This includes a range of activities, from providing transportation to a facility to giving professional medical advice, interpreting radiologic images 4 or even simply informing women of their options in the face of pregnancy. It is difficult to see how this is not an issue for all of the medical profession.

For a great many American women, abortion is healthcare. For those with a cancer diagnosis, ectopic pregnancy or pre-viable premature rupture of membranes, for example, abortion can be a necessary, even life-saving part of their care plan. An unwanted pregnancy can also impact a woman’s life and well-being and economic status, a strong indicator of health 5 , 6 . A recent study estimated that approximately 64,000 pregnancies have resulted from rape and sexual assault from July 2022 through January 2024 in the 14 states with total abortion bans at that time. In the 16 months following the ban, it is estimated more than 26,000 rape-related pregnancies occurred in Texas alone 7 .

In 1992, US Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun (in a separate opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey ) recognized the risks faced by pregnant individuals and their need for autonomy to make their own reproductive choices; the majority opinion preserved American women’s right to reproductive freedom: “These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment… the liberty of the woman is at stake in a sense unique to the human condition and so unique to the law. The mother who carries a child to full term is subject to anxieties, to physical constraints, to pain that only she must bear.”

Maternal mortality and shared decision making

Access to obstetrical care varies state by state, and maternal mortality rates vary as much as 14-fold across the United States, from 4.5 per 100,000 in California to 58 per 100,000 in Louisiana 8 . Maternal mortality rates are 2.6 times higher for Black women than for white women (69.9 versus 26.6 per 100,000) 9 , 10 . With such disparate mortality rates state to state, and where the highest maternal mortality rates are associated with abortion bans as well as a failure to expand Medicaid 8 , 11 , 12 , this issue should not be left to the states. The quality of a woman’s care should not be defined by geographic location. The medical community should take a strong stand against any legislation that can exacerbate maternal mortality in general, and disparities specifically. Given equity and inclusion priorities for clinical trials and care, the inequity that the ban on abortion creates should be a call to action 1 .

As breast cancer physicians, we are women’s healthcare providers and advocates for our patients. Access to family planning, reproductive choices and the full range of reproductive health services is fundamental to women’s health and well-being. If a young woman who is pregnant develops breast cancer, the options for care include pregnancy termination. HER2-directed therapy and newly approved treatments for triple-negative cancer are contraindicated during pregnancy. If a tumor is found early in pregnancy, a long delay could be life threatening. Table 1 presents some of the many similar circumstances in which an abortion might be the best medical option.

In 2024, all medical professionals should be in support of fundamental access to healthcare services for all. This is not simply a political issue — it is an issue of equality, dignity, respect and equity. In states restricting abortion access, the physician’s responsibility to counsel patients honestly and provide evidence-based care is undermined. We fully recognize that a patient’s religious beliefs may result in their choice to forgo a lifesaving medical procedure such as blood transfusion or organ transplant; it is entirely the patient’s right to refuse treatment. Yet it cannot be the state’s right to refuse and criminalize effective, safe and life-saving treatment. These decisions must be shared and made with the patient.

Economic impact of conferences

How might healthcare providers concerned about abortion access help restore the legal right to an abortion? National and international conferences attracting tens of thousands of people each year have an economic impact. These conferences can be moved from states that have abortion bans to states that do not. Pharmaceutical, biotechnology and device companies can also take a lead by choosing to support venues in states upholding women’s access to all reproductive care services and encouraging meeting organizers to start moving their meetings now. It is important that physicians and leaders send a message that the restrictions on both women and physicians are not acceptable.

In a recent commentary, Gross et al. posed the question clearly: “Is it a slippery slope for societies to take a meaningful stand in support of abortion access?” 2 . To this, they answered, “On the contrary: it is the reluctance of professional societies to take a stand that would be a slippery slope — toward condoning unjust restrictions on access to abortion care.” This reluctance condones restrictions that stem from either personal beliefs or misinformation. There are many reasons for abortion, and many complex situations that should be managed by physicians with appropriate training. The stakes are high, and the decision not to end a pregnancy can be extremely destructive for the mother ( https://go.nature.com/3U16iBC ) and can lead to physical, and life-altering circumstance, including death of the mother.

Education and training

Texas has led the way in criminalizing abortion and criminalizing physicians who engage in shared decision-making or in providing information. The state has written these laws with a vigilante provision allowing fellow Texans to sue neighbors, friends and acquaintances who obtain or even assist someone obtaining an abortion. Justice Sonia Sotomayor has called this measure “a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny.” The goal of this law is to intimidate, harass and frighten medical providers into denying women a procedure that may be medically necessary. It puts providers’ livelihoods and their families at risk of violence 13 , as shown by anti-abortion activists ‘doxxing’ (a form of cyberbullying) and threatening physicians who provide or support access to abortions.

These laws are also having a chilling effect on where obstetricians are willing to train and practice, further decreasing access to prenatal care in some states 14 . The recent case of Kate Cox in Texas is a clarion call for change. When she was 20 weeks pregnant, Cox learned that her fetus had trisomy 13, a condition fatal at or shortly after birth. She filed a suit in Texas so that an abortion could be performed under an “exception” to the current Texas Law. Carrying the child to term could have threatened Ms. Cox’s ability to have another child. The District Court ruled in her favor, stating: “The idea that Ms. Cox wants desperately to be a parent, and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability is shocking and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice.” After this ruling, the Texas Attorney General immediately contacted nearby hospitals, threatening them with prosecution under Texas law if the pregnancy was terminated. The Attorney General’s threat to all women and healthcare providers shows a complete disregard for the medical facts and lack of compassion for the affected family. Ms. Cox had the resources to leave the state to get the healthcare she needed. But people without means would not. Physicians should not turn a blind eye to laws that are unjust, discriminatory and interfere with patient care. Patients deserve our support. Are we not complicit if we refuse to take a stand?

If physicians stay silent, restrictions on reproductive rights are likely to continue to escalate, with the most recent example being the Alabama Supreme Court ruling threatening in vitro fertilization. Contraception has been raised as the next target by some legislators 15 . Recently, a federal court in Texas ruled that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of mifepristone, made 20 years ago, should be overturned 16 . Mifepristone has been used by 2.5 million women and is safer than common drugs such as penicillin or sildenafil (Viagra). This ruling could impact national law by overruling the FDA. The courts should not decide what are and what are not medically safe and effective procedures and treatments — this is the real slippery slope, one greased by our collective inaction.

Taking a stand

We have heard from many deeply concerned clinicians and scientists, young and old, who feel powerless to do anything about these laws and fervently support efforts to move major meetings. Some have expressed concern that they or colleagues might face a life-threatening situation should a complication of a pregnancy occur while they are attending a meeting in a state with a ban in place. Female trainees and junior faculty of reproductive age and in early stages of pregnancy attend meetings that are formative for professional advancement. They should not be put at risk. Investigators should not be put in a position where they must compromise their values and possibly their health to advance their careers. This puts a disparate and unequal burden on women.

Physicians have a powerful voice when we act together and make a statement that we will conduct our meetings in states that support full healthcare rights for women. We can make our voices heard by deciding not to promote the economy of states that have placed themselves in direct conflict with medicine’s role in promoting women’s health and public health writ large. Leaders in medicine have the power to choose where to host and attend conferences about health and education. A number of societies have now taken action, moving their meeting venues, including the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the American Association of Immunologists and The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the latter reacting to member concerns that they could be arrested for presenting their work 17 .

While some state legislatures are passing restrictive abortion laws, several statewide referendums have guaranteed the right to abortion in state constitutions. These ballot measures, frequently passed by large majorities, further demonstrate where public opinion stands on women’s right to abortion. We hope that voters in states that have enacted abortion bans will make their position clear at the ballot box. Physicians can support these efforts by making it clear that states that undermine women’s health and public health measures will not be supported by medical conferences. We urge all organizations and companies that sponsor conferences to join us.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank L.M. Yee, J. Esserman, D. Grossman and N. Milliken for their input on creating Table 1 and for reviewing this manuscript.

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L.J.E. is an unpaid board member of the not-for-profit QuantumLeap Healthcare Collaborative, is on the Medical Advisory Panel for Blue Cross Blue Shield and receives funding for a phase 1 intratumoral injection study for DCIS from Moderna.

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What can economic research tell us about the effect of abortion access on women’s lives?

Subscribe to the center for economic security and opportunity newsletter, caitlin knowles myers and caitlin knowles myers john g. mccullough professor of economics; co-director, middlebury initiative for data and digital methods - middlebury college @caitlin_k_myers morgan welch morgan welch senior research assistant & project coordinator - center on children and families, economic studies, brookings institution.

November 30, 2021

• 21 min read

On September 20, 2021, a group of 154 distinguished economists and researchers filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in advance of the Mississippi case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization . For a full review of the evidence that shows how causal inference tools have been used to measure the effects of abortion access in the U.S., read the brief here .

Introduction

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization considers the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi law that prohibits women from accessing abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. This case is widely expected to determine the fate of Roe v. Wade as Mississippi is directly challenging the precedent set by the Supreme Court’s decisions in Roe , which protects abortion access before fetal viability (typically between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy). On December 1, 2021, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson . In asking the Court to overturn Roe , the state of Mississippi offers reassurances that “there is simply no causal link between the availability of abortion and the capacity of women to act in society” 1 and hence no reason to believe that abortion access has shaped “the ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation” 2 as the Court had previously held.

While the debate over abortion often centers on largely intractable subjective questions of ethics and morality, in this instance the Court is being asked to consider an objective question about the causal effects of abortion access on the lives of women and their families. The field of economics affords insights into these objective questions through the application of sophisticated methodological approaches that can be used to isolate and measure the causal effects of abortion access on reproductive, social, and economic outcomes for women and their families.

Separating Correlation from Causation: The “Credibility Revolution” in Economics

To measure the causal effect of abortion on women’s lives, one must differentiate its effects from those of other forces, such as economic opportunity, social mores, the availability of contraception. Powerful statistical methodologies in the causal inference toolbox have made it possible for economists to do just that, moving beyond the maxim “correlation isn’t necessarily causation” and applying the scientific method to figure out when it is.

This year’s decision by the Economic Sciences Prize Committee recognized the contributions 3 of economists David Card, Joshua Angrist, and Guido Imbens, awarding them the Nobel Prize for their pathbreaking work developing and applying the tools of causal inference in a movement dubbed “the credibility revolution” (Angrist and Pischke, 2010). The gold standard for establishing such credibility is a well-executed randomized controlled trial – an experiment conducted in the lab or field in which treatment is randomly assigned. When economists can feasibly and ethically implement such experiments, they do. However, in the social world, this opportunity is often not available. For instance, one cannot feasibly or ethically randomly assign abortion access to some individuals but not others. Faced with this obstacle, economists turn to “natural” or “quasi” experimental methods, ones in which they are able to credibly argue that treatment is as good as randomly assigned.

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October 5, 2021

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July 29, 2019

Pioneering applications of this approach include work by Angrist and Krueger (1991) leveraging variation in compulsory school attendance laws to measure the effects of schooling on earnings and work by Card and Krueger (1994) leveraging minimum wage variation across state borders to measure the effects of the minimum wages on employment outcomes. The use of these methods is now widespread, not just in economics, but in other social sciences as well. Fueled by advances in computing technology and the availability of data, quasi-experimental methodologies have become as ubiquitous as they are powerful, applied to answer questions ranging from the effects of economic shocks on civil conflict (Miguel, Sayanath, and Sergenti, 2004), to the effects of the Clean Water Act on water pollution levels (Keiser and Shapiro, 2019), and effects of access to food stamps in childhood on later life outcomes (Hoynes, Schanzenbach, Almond 2016; Bailey et al., 2020).

Research demonstrates that abortion access does, in fact, profoundly affect women’s lives by determining whether, when, and under what circumstances they become mothers.

Economists also have applied these tools to study the causal effects of abortion access. Research drawing on methods from the “credibility revolution” disentangles the effects of abortion policy from other societal and economic forces. This research demonstrates that abortion access does, in fact, profoundly affect women’s lives by determining whether, when, and under what circumstances they become mothers, outcomes which then reverberate through their lives, affecting marriage patterns, educational attainment, labor force participation, and earnings.

The Effects of Abortion Access on Women’s Reproductive, Economic, and Social Lives

Evidence of the effects of abortion legalization.

The history of abortion legalization in the United States affords both a canonical and salient example of a natural experiment. While Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in most of the country in 1973, five states—Alaska, California, Hawaii, New York, and Washington—and the District of Columbia repealed their abortion bans several years in advance of Roe . Using a methodology known as “difference-in-difference estimation,” researchers compared changes in outcomes in these “repeal states” when they lifted abortion bans to changes in outcomes in the rest of the country. They also compared changes in outcomes in the rest of the country in 1973 when Roe legalized abortion to changes in outcomes in the repeal states where abortion already was legal. This difference-in-differences methodology allows the states where abortion access is not changing to serve as a counterfactual or “control” group that accounts for other forces that were impacting fertility and women’s lives in the Roe era.

Among the first to employ this approach was a team of economists (Levine, Staiger, Kane, and Zimmerman, 1999) who estimated that the legalization of abortion in repeal states led to a 4% to 11% decline in births in those states relative to the rest of the country. Levine and his co-authors found that these fertility effects were particularly large for teens and women of color, who experienced birth rate reductions that were nearly three times greater than the overall population as a result of abortion legalization. Multiple research teams have replicated the essential finding that abortion legalization substantially impacted American fertility while extending the analysis to consider other outcomes. 4 For example, Myers (2017) found that abortion legalization reduced the number of women who became teen mothers by 34% and the number who became teen brides by 20%, and again observed effects that were even larger for Black teens. Farin, Hoehn-Velasco, and Pesko (2021) found that abortion legalization reduced maternal mortality among Black women by 30-40%, with little impact on white women, offering the explanation that where abortion was illegal, Black women were less likely to be able to access safe abortions by traveling to other states or countries or by obtaining a clandestine abortion from a trusted health care provider.

The ripple effects of abortion access on the lives of women and their families

This research, which clearly demonstrates the causal relationship between abortion access and first-order demographic and health outcomes, laid the foundation for researchers ­to measure further ripple effects through the lives of women and their families. Multiple teams of authors have extended the difference-in-differences research designs to study educational and labor market outcomes, finding that abortion legalization increased women’s education, labor force participation, occupational prestige, and earnings and that all these effects were particularly large for Black women (Angrist and Evans, 1996; Kalist, 2004; Lindo, Pineda-Torres, Pritchard, and Tajali, 2020; Jones, 2021).

Additionally, research shows that abortion access has not only had profound effects on women’s economic and social lives but has also impacted the circumstances into which children are born. Researchers using difference-in-differences research designs have found that abortion legalization reduced the number of children who were unwanted (Bitler and Zavodny, 2002a, reduced cases of child neglect and abuse (Bitler and Zavodny, 2002b; 2004), reduced the number of children who lived in poverty (Gruber, Levine, and Staiger, 1999), and improved long-run outcomes of an entire generation of children by increasing the likelihood of attending college and reducing the likelihood of living in poverty and receiving public assistance (Ananat, Gruber, Levine, and Staiger, 2009).

Access to abortion continues to be important to women’s lives

The research cited above relies on variation in abortion access from the 1970s, and much has changed in terms of both reproductive technologies and women’s lives. Recent research shows, however, that even with the social, economic, and legal shifts that have occurred over the last few decades and even with expanded access to contraception, abortion access remains relevant to women’s reproductive lives. Today, nearly half of pregnancies are unintended (Finer and Zolna, 2016). About 6% of young women (ages 15-34) experience an unintended pregnancy each year (Finer, Lindberg, and Desai, 2018), and about 1.4% of women of childbearing age obtain an abortion each year (Jones, Witwer, and Jerman, 2019). At these rates, approximately one in four women will receive an abortion in their reproductive lifetimes. The fact is clear: women continue to rely on abortion access to determine their reproductive lives.

But what about their economic and social lives? While women have made great progress in terms of their educational attainment, career trajectories, and role in society, mothers face a variety of challenges and penalties that are not adequately addressed by public policy. Following the birth of a child, it’s well documented that working mothers face a “motherhood wage penalty,” which entails lower wages than women who did not have a child (Waldfogel, 1998; Anderson, Binder, and Krause, 2002; Kelven et al., 2019). Maternity leave may combat this penalty as it allows women to return to their jobs following the birth of a child – encouraging them to remain attached to the labor force (Rossin-Slater, 2017). However, as of this writing, the U.S. only offers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave through the FMLA, which extends coverage to less than 60% of all workers. 5 And even if a mother is able to return to work, childcare in the U.S. is costly and often inaccessible for many. Families with infants can be expected to pay around $11,000 a year for childcare and subsidies are only available for 1 in 6 children that are eligible under the federal program. 6 Without a federal paid leave policy and access to affordable childcare, the U.S. lacks the infrastructure to adequately support mothers, and especially working mothers – making the prospect of motherhood financially unworkable for some.

This is relevant when considering that the women who seek abortions tend to be low-income mothers experiencing disruptive life events. In the most recent survey of abortion patients conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, 97% are adults, 49% are living below the poverty line, 59% already have children, and 55% are experiencing a disruptive life event such as losing a job, breaking up with a partner, or falling behind on rent (Jones and Jerman, 2017a and 2017b). It is not a stretch to imagine that access to abortion could be pivotal to these women’s financial lives, and recent evidence from “The Turnaway Study” 7 provides empirical support for this supposition. In this study, an interdisciplinary team of researchers follows two groups of women who were typically seeking abortions in the second trimester: one group that arrived at abortion clinics and learned they were just over the gestational age threshold for abortions and were “turned away” and a second that was just under the threshold and were provided an abortion. Miller, Wherry, and Foster (2020) match individuals in both groups to their Experian credit reports and observe that in the months leading up to the moment they sought an abortion, financial outcomes for both groups were trending similarly. At the moment one group is turned away from a wanted abortion, however, they began to experience substantial financial distress, exhibiting a 78% increase in past-due debt and an 81% increase in public records related to bankruptcies, evictions, and court judgments.

If Roe were overturned, the number of women experiencing substantial obstacles to obtaining an abortion would dramatically increase.

If Roe were overturned, the number of women experiencing substantial obstacles to obtaining an abortion would dramatically increase. Twelve states have enacted “trigger bans” designed to outlaw abortion in the immediate aftermath of a Roe reversal, while an additional 10 are considered highly likely to quickly enact new bans. 8 These bans would shutter abortion facilities across a wide swath of the American south and midwest, dramatically increasing travel distances and the logistical costs of obtaining an abortion. Economics research predicts what is likely to happen next. Multiple teams of economists have exploited natural experiments arising from mandatory waiting periods (Joyce and Kaestner, 2001; Lindo and Pineda-Torres, 2021; Myers, 2021) and provider closures (Quast, Gonzalez, and Ziemba, 2017; Fischer, Royer, and White, 2018; Lindo, Myers, Schlosser, and Cunningham, 2020; Venator and Fletcher, 2021; Myers, 2021). All have found that increases in travel distances prevent large numbers of women seeking abortions from reaching a provider and that most of these women give birth as a result. For instance, Lindo and co-authors (2020) exploit a natural experiment arising from the sudden closure of half of Texas’s abortion clinics in 2013 and find that an increase in travel distance from 0 to 100 miles results in a 25.8% decrease in abortions. Myers, Jones, and Upadhyay (2019) use these results to envision a post- Roe United States, forecasting that if Roe is overturned and the expected states begin to ban abortions, approximately 1/3 of women living in affected regions would be unable to reach an abortion provider, amounting to roughly 100,000 women in the first year alone.

Restricting, or outright eliminating, abortion access by overturning Roe v. Wade  would diminish women’s personal and economic lives, as well as the lives of their families.

Whether one’s stance on abortion access is driven by deeply held views on women’s bodily autonomy or when life begins, the decades of research using rigorous methods is clear: there is a causal link between access to abortion and whether, when, and under what circumstances women become mothers, with ripple effects throughout their lives. Access affects their education, earnings, careers, and the subsequent life outcomes for their children. In the state’s argument, Mississippi rejects the causal link between access to abortion and societal outcomes established by economists and states that the availability of abortion isn’t relevant to women’s full participation in society. Economists provide clear evidence that overturning Roe would prevent large numbers of women experiencing unintended pregnancies—many of whom are low-income and financially vulnerable mothers—from obtaining desired abortions. Restricting, or outright eliminating, that access by overturning Roe v. Wade would diminish women’s personal and economic lives, as well as the lives of their families.

Caitlin Knowles Myers did not receive financial support from any firm or person for this article. She has received financial compensation from Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Center for Reproductive Rights for serving as an expert witness in litigation involving abortion regulations. She has not and will not receive financial compensation for her role in the amicus brief described here. Other than the aforementioned, she has not received financial support from any firm or person with a financial or political interest in this article. Caitlin Knowles Myers is not currently an officer, director, or board member of any organization with a financial or political interest in this article.

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Angrist, Joshua D., and William N. Evans, 1996. “Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of the 1970 State Abortion Reforms.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 5406. Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/papers/w5406 .

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Bailey, Martha J., Hoynes, Hilary W., Rossin-Slater, Maya and Reed Walker, 2020. “Is the Social Safety Net a Long-Term Investment? Large-Scale Evidence from the Food Stamps Program” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 26942 , Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/papers/w26942

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Bitler, Marianne, and Madeline Zavodny, 2002b. “Child Abuse and Abortion Availability.” American Economic Review , 92 (2): 363-367. Retrieved from https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/000282802320191624

Bitler, Marianne, and Madeline Zavodny, 2004. “Child Maltreatment, Abortion Availability, and Economic Conditions.” Review of Economics of the Household 2: 119-141. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1023/B:REHO.0000031610.36468.0e

Farin, Sherajum Monira, Hoehn-Velasco, Lauren, and Michael Pesko, 2021. “The Impact of Legal Abortion on Maternal Health: Looking to the Past to Inform the Present.” Retrieved from SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3913899

Finer, Lawrence B., and Mia R. Zolna, 2016. “Declines in Unintended Pregnancy in the United States, 2008–2011” New England Journal of Medicine 374. Retrieved from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26962904/

Finer, Lawrence B., Lindberg, Laura, D., and Sheila Desai. “A prospective measure of unintended pregnancy in the United States.” Contraception 98(6). Retrieved from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29879398/

Fischer, Stefanie, Royer, Heather, and Corey White, 2017. “The Impacts of Reduced Access to Abortion and Family Planning Services on Abortion, Births, and Contraceptive Purchases.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 23634 . Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/papers/w23634

Gruber, Jonathan, Levine, Phillip, and Douglas Staiger, 1999. “Abortion Legalization and Child Living Circumstances: Who Is the ‘Marginal Child’?” Quarterly Journal of Economics 114. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1162/003355399556007

Guldi, Melanie, 2008. “Fertility effects of abortion and birth control pill access for minors.” Demography 45 . Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.0.0026

Hoynes, Hilary, Schanzenbach, Diane Whitmore, and Douglas Almond, 2016. “Long-Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net.” American Economic Review 106(4). Retrieved from https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20130375

Jones, Kelly, 2021. “At a Crossroads: The Impact of Abortion Access on Future Economic Outcomes.” American University Working Paper . Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.17606/0Q51-0R11 .

Jones, Rachel K., Witwer, Elizabeth, Jerman, Jenna, September 18, 2018. “Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2017.” Guttmacher Institute. Retrieved from https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/ default/files/report_pdf/abortion-inciden ce-service-availability-us-2017.

Jones Rachel K., and Janna Jerman, 2017a. ”Population group abortion rates and lifetime incidence of abortion: United States, 2008–2014.”  American Journal of Public Health 107 (12). Retrieved from https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304042

Jones, Rachel K. and Jenna Jerman, 2017b. “Characteristics and Circumstances of U.S. Women Who Obtain Very Early and Second-Trimester Abortions.” PLoS One . Retrieved from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28121999/

Joyce, Ted, and Robert Kaestner, 2001. “The Impact of Mandatory Waiting Periods and Parental Consent Laws on the Timing of Abortion and State of Occurrence among Adolescents in Mississippi and South Carolina.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 20(2) . Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/3325799 .

Kalist, David E., 2004. “Abortion and Female Labor Force Participation: Evidence Prior to Roe v. Wade.” Journal of Labor Research 25 (3) .

Keiser, David, and Joseph Shapiro, 2019. “Consequences of the Clean Water Act and the Demand for Water Quality.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 134 (1).

Kleven, Henrik, Landais, Camille, Posch, Johanna, Steinhauer, Andreas, and Josef Zweimuleler, 2019. “Child Penalties Across Countries: Evidence and Explanations.” AEA Papers and Proceedings 109. Retrieved from https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pandp.20191078/

Levine, Phillip, Staiger, Douglas, Kane, Thomas, and David Zimmerman, 1999. “Roe v. Wade and American Fertility.” American Journal Of Public Health 89(2) . Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1508542/

Lindo, Jason M., Myers, Caitlin Knowles, Schlosser, Andrea, and Scott Cunningham, 2020. “How Far Is Too Far? New Evidence on Abortion Clinic Closures, Access, and Abortions” Journal of Human Resources 55. Retrieved from http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/55/4/1137.refs

Lindo, Jason M., Pineda-Torres, Mayra, Pritchard, David, and Hedieh Tajali, 2020. “Legal Access to Reproductive Control Technology, Women’s Education, and Earnings Approaching Retirement.” AEA Papers and Proceedings 110. Retrieved from https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pandp.20201108

Lindo, Jason M., and Mayra Pineda-Torres, 2021. “New Evidence on the Effects of Mandatory Waiting Periods for Abortion.” J ournal of Health Econ omics. Retrieved from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34607119/

Miguel, Edward, Satyanath, Shanker, and Ernest Sergenti, 2004. “Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach.” Journal of Political Economy 112(4). Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/421174

Miller, Sarah, Wherry, Laura R., and Diana Greene Foster, 2020. “The Economic Consequences of Being Denied an Abortion.” National Bureau of  Economic Research, Working Paper 26662 . Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/papers/w26662 .

Myers, Caitlin Knowles, 2017. “The Power of Abortion Policy: Reexamining the Effects of Young Women’s Access to Reproductive Control” Journal of Political Economy 125(6) .  Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1086/694293 .

Myers, Caitlin Knowles, Jones, Rachel, and Ushma Upadhyay, 2019. “Predicted changes in abortion access and incidence in a post-Roe world.” Contraception 100(5). Retrieved from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31376381/

Myers, Caitlin Knowles, 2021. “Cooling off or Burdened? The Effects of Mandatory Waiting Periods on Abortions and Births.” IZA Institute of Labor Economics No. 14434. Retrieved from https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/14434/cooling-off-or-burdened-the-effects-of-mandatory-waiting-periods-on-abortions-and-births

Quast, Troy, Gonzalez, Fidel, and Robert Ziemba, 2017. “Abortion Facility Closings and Abortion Rates in Texas.” Inquiry: A Journal of Medical Care Organization, Provision and Financing 54 . Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0046958017700944

Rossin-Slater, Maya, 2017. “Maternity and Family Leave Policy.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 23069. Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/papers/w23069

Venator, Joanna, and Jason Fletcher, 2020. “Undue Burden Beyond Texas: An Analysis of Abortion Clinic Closures, Births, and Abortions in Wisconsin.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 40(3). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22263

Waldfogel, Jane, 1998. “The family gap for young women in the United States and Britain: Can maternity leave make a difference?” Journal of Labor Economics 16(3).

• Thomas E. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Brief in Support of Petitioners, No. 19-1392.
• Thomas E. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Brief for Petitioners, No. 19-139, Retrieved from https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/184703/20210722161332385_19-1392BriefForPetitioners.pdf
• The Nobel Prize. 2021. “Press release: The Prize in Economic Sciences 202.” Retrieved from https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2021/press-release/
• See Angrist and Evans (1996), Gruber et al. (1999), Ananat et al. (2009), Guldi (2008), Myers (2017), Abboud (2019), Jones (2021).
• Brown, Scott, Herr, Jane, Roy, Radha , and Jacob Alex Klerman, July 2020. “Employee and Worksite Perspectives of the FMLA Who Is Eligible?” U.S. Department of Labor. Retrieved from https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OASP/evaluation/pdf/WHD_FMLA2018PB1WhoIsEligible_StudyBrief_Aug2020.pdf
• Whitehurst, Grover J., April 19, 2018. “What is the market price of daycare and preschool?” Brookings Institution. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-is-the-market-price-of-daycare-and-preschool/; Chien, Nina, 2021. “Factsheet: Estimates of Child Care Eligibility & Receipt for Fiscal Year 2018.” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved from https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/20 21-08/cy-2018-child-care-subsidy-eligibility.pdf
• Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (NSIRH). “The Turnaway Study.” Retrieved from https://www.ansirh.org/research/ongoing/turnaway-study.
• Center for Reproductive Rights, 2021. “What If Roe Fell?” Retrieved from https://maps.reproductiverights.org/what-if-roe-fell

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• America’s Abortion Quandary

1. Americans’ views on whether, and in what circumstances, abortion should be legal

Table of contents.

• Abortion at various stages of pregnancy 
• Abortion and circumstances of pregnancy 
• Parental notification for minors seeking abortion
• Penalties for abortions performed illegally 
• Public views of what would change the number of abortions in the U.S.
• A majority of Americans say women should have more say in setting abortion policy in the U.S.
• How do certain arguments about abortion resonate with Americans?
• In their own words: How Americans feel about abortion 
• Personal connections to abortion 
• Religion’s impact on views about abortion
• Acknowledgments
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology

As the long-running debate over abortion reaches another  key moment at the Supreme Court  and in  state legislatures across the country , a majority of U.S. adults continue to say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. About six-in-ten Americans (61%) say abortion should be legal in “all” or “most” cases, while 37% think abortion should be  illegal  in all or most cases. These views have changed little over the past several years: In 2019, for example, 61% of adults said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 38% said it should be illegal in all or most cases.    Most respondents in the new survey took one of the middle options when first asked about their views on abortion, saying either that abortion should be legal in  most  cases (36%) or illegal in  most  cases (27%). 

Respondents who said abortion should either be legal in  all  cases or illegal in  all  cases received a follow-up question asking whether there should be any exceptions to such laws. Overall, 25% of adults initially said abortion should be legal in all cases, but about a quarter of this group (6% of all U.S. adults) went on to say that there should be some exceptions when abortion should be against the law.

One-in-ten adults initially answered that abortion should be illegal in all cases, but about one-in-five of these respondents (2% of all U.S. adults) followed up by saying that there are some exceptions when abortion should be permitted. 

Altogether, seven-in-ten Americans say abortion should be legal in some cases and illegal in others, including 42% who say abortion should be generally legal, but with some exceptions, and 29% who say it should be generally illegal, except in certain cases. Much smaller shares take absolutist views when it comes to the legality of abortion in the U.S., maintaining that abortion should be legal in all cases with no exceptions (19%) or illegal in all circumstances (8%). 

There is a modest gender gap in views of whether abortion should be legal, with women slightly more likely than men to say abortion should be legal in all cases or in all cases but with some exceptions (63% vs. 58%). 

Younger adults are considerably more likely than older adults to say abortion should be legal: Three-quarters of adults under 30 (74%) say abortion should be generally legal, including 30% who say it should be legal in all cases without exception. 

But there is an even larger gap in views toward abortion by partisanship: 80% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 38% of Republicans and GOP leaners.  Previous Center research  has shown this gap widening over the past 15 years. 

Still, while partisans diverge in views of whether abortion should mostly be legal or illegal, most Democrats and Republicans do not view abortion in absolutist terms. Just 13% of Republicans say abortion should be against the law in all cases without exception; 47% say it should be illegal with some exceptions. And while three-in-ten Democrats say abortion should be permitted in all circumstances, half say it should mostly be legal – but with some exceptions. 

There also are sizable divisions within both partisan coalitions by ideology. For instance, while a majority of moderate and liberal Republicans say abortion should mostly be legal (60%), just 27% of conservative Republicans say the same. Among Democrats, self-described liberals are twice as apt as moderates and conservatives to say abortion should be legal in all cases without exception (42% vs. 20%).

Regardless of partisan affiliation, adults who say they personally know someone who has had an abortion – such as a friend, relative or themselves – are more likely to say abortion should be legal than those who say they do not know anyone who had an abortion.

Views toward abortion also vary considerably by religious affiliation – specifically among large Christian subgroups and religiously unaffiliated Americans. 

For example, roughly three-quarters of White evangelical Protestants say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. This is far higher than the share of White non-evangelical Protestants (38%) or Black Protestants (28%) who say the same. 

Despite  Catholic teaching on abortion , a slim majority of U.S. Catholics (56%) say abortion should be legal. This includes 13% who say it should be legal in all cases without exception, and 43% who say it should be legal, but with some exceptions. 

Compared with Christians, religiously unaffiliated adults are far more likely to say abortion should be legal overall – and significantly more inclined to say it should be legal in all cases without exception. Within this group, atheists stand out: 97% say abortion should be legal, including 53% who say it should be legal in all cases without exception. Agnostics and those who describe their religion as “nothing in particular” also overwhelmingly say that abortion should be legal, but they are more likely than atheists to say there are some circumstances when abortion should be against the law.

Although the survey was conducted among Americans of many religious backgrounds, including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, it did not obtain enough respondents from non-Christian groups to report separately on their responses.

As a  growing number of states  debate legislation to restrict abortion – often after a certain stage of pregnancy – Americans express complex views about when   abortion should generally be legal and when it should be against the law. Overall, a majority of adults (56%) say that how long a woman has been pregnant should matter in determining when abortion should be legal, while far fewer (14%) say that this should  not  be a factor. An additional one-quarter of the public says that abortion should either be legal (19%) or illegal (8%) in all circumstances without exception; these respondents did not receive this question.

Among men and women, Republicans and Democrats, and Christians and religious “nones” who do not take absolutist positions about abortion on either side of the debate, the prevailing view is that the stage of the pregnancy should be a factor in determining whether abortion should be legal.

Americans broadly are more likely to favor restrictions on abortion later in pregnancy than earlier in pregnancy. Many adults also say the legality of abortion depends on other factors at every stage of pregnancy. 

Overall, a plurality of adults (44%) say that abortion should be legal six weeks into a pregnancy, which is about when cardiac activity (sometimes called a fetal heartbeat) may be detected and before many women know they are pregnant; this includes 19% of adults who say abortion should be legal in all cases without exception, as well as 25% of adults who say it should be legal at that point in a pregnancy. An additional 7% say abortion generally should be legal in most cases, but that the stage of the pregnancy should not matter in determining legality. 1

One-in-five Americans (21%) say abortion should be  illegal  at six weeks. This includes 8% of adults who say abortion should be illegal in all cases without exception as well as 12% of adults who say that abortion should be illegal at this point. Additionally, 6% say abortion should be illegal in most cases and how long a woman has been pregnant should not matter in determining abortion’s legality. Nearly one-in-five respondents, when asked whether abortion should be legal six weeks into a pregnancy, say “it depends.” 

Americans are more divided about what should be permitted 14 weeks into a pregnancy – roughly at the end of the first trimester – although still, more people say abortion should be legal at this stage (34%) than illegal (27%), and about one-in-five say “it depends.”

Fewer adults say abortion should be legal 24 weeks into a pregnancy – about when a healthy fetus could survive outside the womb with medical care. At this stage, 22% of adults say abortion should be legal, while nearly twice as many (43%) say it should be  illegal . Again, about one-in-five adults (18%) say whether abortion should be legal at 24 weeks depends on other factors. 

Respondents who said that abortion should be illegal 24 weeks into a pregnancy or that “it depends” were asked a follow-up question about whether abortion at that point should be legal if the pregnant woman’s life is in danger or the baby would be born with severe disabilities. Most who received this question say abortion in these circumstances should be legal (54%) or that it depends on other factors (40%). Just 4% of this group maintained that abortion should be illegal in this case.

This pattern in views of abortion – whereby more favor greater restrictions on abortion as a pregnancy progresses – is evident across a variety of demographic and political groups. 

Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to say that abortion should be legal at each of the three stages of pregnancy asked about on the survey. For example, while 26% of Republicans say abortion should be legal at six weeks of pregnancy, more than twice as many Democrats say the same (61%). Similarly, while about a third of Democrats say abortion should be legal at 24 weeks of pregnancy, just 8% of Republicans say the same. 

However, neither Republicans nor Democrats uniformly express absolutist views about abortion throughout a pregnancy. Republicans are divided on abortion at six weeks: Roughly a quarter say it should be legal (26%), while a similar share say it depends (24%). A third say it should be illegal. 

Democrats are divided about whether abortion should be legal or illegal at 24 weeks, with 34% saying it should be legal, 29% saying it should be illegal, and 21% saying it depends. 

There also is considerable division among each partisan group by ideology. At six weeks of pregnancy, just one-in-five conservative Republicans (19%) say that abortion should be legal; moderate and liberal Republicans are twice as likely as their conservative counterparts to say this (39%). 

At the same time, about half of liberal Democrats (48%) say abortion at 24 weeks should be legal, while 17% say it should be illegal. Among conservative and moderate Democrats, the pattern is reversed: A plurality (39%) say abortion at this stage should be illegal, while 24% say it should be legal. 

Christian adults are far less likely than religiously unaffiliated Americans to say abortion should be legal at each stage of pregnancy.  

Among Protestants, White evangelicals stand out for their opposition to abortion. At six weeks of pregnancy, for example, 44% say abortion should be illegal, compared with 17% of White non-evangelical Protestants and 15% of Black Protestants. This pattern also is evident at 14 and 24 weeks of pregnancy, when half or more of White evangelicals say abortion should be illegal.

At six weeks, a plurality of Catholics (41%) say abortion should be legal, while smaller shares say it depends or it should be illegal. But by 24 weeks, about half of Catholics (49%) say abortion should be illegal. 

Among adults who are religiously unaffiliated, atheists stand out for their views. They are the only group in which a sizable majority says abortion should be  legal  at each point in a pregnancy. Even at 24 weeks, 62% of self-described atheists say abortion should be legal, compared with smaller shares of agnostics (43%) and those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” (31%). 

As is the case with adults overall, most religiously affiliated and religiously unaffiliated adults who originally say that abortion should be illegal or “it depends” at 24 weeks go on to say either it should be legal or it depends if the pregnant woman’s life is in danger or the baby would be born with severe disabilities. Few (4% and 5%, respectively) say abortion should be illegal at 24 weeks in these situations.

The stage of the pregnancy is not the only factor that shapes people’s views of when abortion should be legal. Sizable majorities of U.S. adults say that abortion should be legal if the pregnancy threatens the life or health of the pregnant woman (73%) or if pregnancy is the result of rape (69%). 

There is less consensus when it comes to circumstances in which a baby may be born with severe disabilities or health problems: 53% of Americans overall say abortion should be legal in such circumstances, including 19% who say abortion should be legal in all cases and 35% who say there are some situations where abortions should be illegal, but that it should be legal in this specific type of case. A quarter of adults say “it depends” in this situation, and about one-in-five say it should be illegal (10% who say illegal in this specific circumstance and 8% who say illegal in all circumstances). 

There are sizable divides between and among partisans when it comes to views of abortion in these situations. Overall, Republicans are less likely than Democrats to say abortion should be legal in each of the three circumstances outlined in the survey. However, both partisan groups are less likely to say abortion should be legal when the baby may be born with severe disabilities or health problems than when the woman’s life is in danger or the pregnancy is the result of rape. 

Just as there are wide gaps among Republicans by ideology on whether how long a woman has been pregnant should be a factor in determining abortion’s legality, there are large gaps when it comes to circumstances in which abortions should be legal. For example, while a clear majority of moderate and liberal Republicans (71%) say abortion should be permitted when the pregnancy is the result of rape, conservative Republicans are more divided. About half (48%) say it should be legal in this situation, while 29% say it should be illegal and 21% say it depends.

The ideological gaps among Democrats are slightly less pronounced. Most Democrats say abortion should be legal in each of the three circumstances – just to varying degrees. While 77% of liberal Democrats say abortion should be legal if a baby will be born with severe disabilities or health problems, for example, a smaller majority of conservative and moderate Democrats (60%) say the same. 

White evangelical Protestants again stand out for their views on abortion in various circumstances; they are far less likely than White non-evangelical or Black Protestants to say abortion should be legal across each of the three circumstances described in the survey. 

While about half of White evangelical Protestants (51%) say abortion should be legal if a pregnancy threatens the woman’s life or health, clear majorities of other Protestant groups and Catholics say this should be the case. The same pattern holds in views of whether abortion should be legal if the pregnancy is the result of rape. Most White non-evangelical Protestants (75%), Black Protestants (71%) and Catholics (66%) say abortion should be permitted in this instance, while White evangelicals are more divided: 40% say it should be legal, while 34% say it should be  illegal  and about a quarter say it depends. 

Mirroring the pattern seen among adults overall, opinions are more varied about a situation where a baby might be born with severe disabilities or health issues. For instance, half of Catholics say abortion should be legal in such cases, while 21% say it should be illegal and 27% say it depends on the situation. 

Most religiously unaffiliated adults – including overwhelming majorities of self-described atheists – say abortion should be legal in each of the three circumstances. 

Seven-in-ten U.S. adults say that doctors or other health care providers should be required to notify a parent or legal guardian if the pregnant woman seeking an abortion is under 18, while 28% say they should not be required to do so.  

Women are slightly less likely than men to say this should be a requirement (67% vs. 74%). And younger adults are far less likely than those who are older to say a parent or guardian should be notified before a doctor performs an abortion on a pregnant woman who is under 18. In fact, about half of adults ages 18 to 24 (53%) say a doctor should  not  be required to notify a parent. By contrast, 64% of adults ages 25 to 29 say doctors  should  be required to notify parents of minors seeking an abortion, as do 68% of adults ages 30 to 49 and 78% of those 50 and older. 

A large majority of Republicans (85%) say that a doctor should be required to notify the parents of a minor before an abortion, though conservative Republicans are somewhat more likely than moderate and liberal Republicans to take this position (90% vs. 77%). 

The ideological divide is even more pronounced among Democrats. Overall, a slim majority of Democrats (57%) say a parent should be notified in this circumstance, but while 72% of conservative and moderate Democrats hold this view, just 39% of liberal Democrats agree. 

By and large, most Protestant (81%) and Catholic (78%) adults say doctors should be required to notify parents of minors before an abortion. But religiously unaffiliated Americans are more divided. Majorities of both atheists (71%) and agnostics (58%) say doctors should  not  be required to notify parents of minors seeking an abortion, while six-in-ten of those who describe their religion as “nothing in particular” say such notification should be required. 

Americans are divided over who should be penalized – and what that penalty should be – in a situation where an abortion occurs illegally. 

Overall, a 60% majority of adults say that if a doctor or provider performs an abortion in a situation where it is illegal, they should face a penalty. But there is less agreement when it comes to others who may have been involved in the procedure. 

While about half of the public (47%) says a woman who has an illegal abortion should face a penalty, a nearly identical share (50%) says she should not. And adults are more likely to say people who help find and schedule or pay for an abortion in a situation where it is illegal should  not  face a penalty than they are to say they should.

Views about penalties are closely correlated with overall attitudes about whether abortion should be legal or illegal. For example, just 20% of adults who say abortion should be legal in all cases without exception think doctors or providers should face a penalty if an abortion were carried out in a situation where it was illegal. This compares with 91% of those who think abortion should be illegal in all cases without exceptions. Still, regardless of how they feel about whether abortion should be legal or not, Americans are more likely to say a doctor or provider should face a penalty compared with others involved in the procedure. 

Among those who say medical providers and/or women should face penalties for illegal abortions, there is no consensus about whether they should get jail time or a less severe punishment. Among U.S. adults overall, 14% say women should serve jail time if they have an abortion in a situation where it is illegal, while 16% say they should receive a fine or community service and 17% say they are not sure what the penalty should be. 

A somewhat larger share of Americans (25%) say doctors or other medical providers should face jail time for providing illegal abortion services, while 18% say they should face fines or community service and 17% are not sure. About three-in-ten U.S. adults (31%) say doctors should lose their medical license if they perform an abortion in a situation where it is illegal.

Men are more likely than women to favor penalties for the woman or doctor in situations where abortion is illegal. About half of men (52%) say women should face a penalty, while just 43% of women say the same. Similarly, about two-thirds of men (64%) say a doctor should face a penalty, while 56% of women agree.

Republicans are considerably more likely than Democrats to say both women and doctors should face penalties – including jail time. For example, 21% of Republicans say the woman who had the abortion should face jail time, and 40% say this about the doctor who performed the abortion. Among Democrats, far smaller shares say the woman (8%) or doctor (13%) should serve jail time.  

White evangelical Protestants are more likely than other Protestant groups to favor penalties for abortions in situations where they are illegal. Fully 24% say the woman who had the abortion should serve time in jail, compared with just 12% of White non-evangelical Protestants or Black Protestants. And while about half of White evangelicals (48%) say doctors who perform illegal abortions should serve jail time, just 26% of White non-evangelical Protestants and 18% of Black Protestants share this view.

• Only respondents who said that abortion should be legal in some cases but not others and that how long a woman has been pregnant should matter in determining whether abortion should be legal received questions about abortion’s legality at specific points in the pregnancy.  ↩

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May 3, 2024

Abortion Restrictions Are Spreading, even though Science Shows They’re Harmful

“We should not make it harder for people to access abortion,” says a researcher who has studied the impacts on people who seek the procedure and are denied

By Meghan Bartels

Aleksandr Kirillov/Getty Images

In the nearly two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , restrictions on the health care procedure have expanded, particularly across the South.

Currently, 14 states have banned abortion outright, and 11 have restricted it to 22 weeks or less after a person’s last period. Most recently, Florida tightened its restrictions on May 1. Arizona had been expected to ban nearly all abortions in coming weeks, but because the 1864 law that strict ban was based on was repealed this week, the strict ban will apply only temporarily. The state is expected to revert to a previous 15-week ban later this year. As restrictions have spread, the distances that people living in parts of the Midwest and most of the South need to travel to reach an abortion facility are increasing. Simultaneously, reproductive rights opponents are looking to use an 1873 law called the Comstock Act , which outlaws mailing “obscene” material, to further limit abortions—and perhaps to target contraception. This November up to 15 states may vote on abortion rights.

When people want an abortion and can’t get one, the results can harm the physical, emotional and financial health of both parent and child. Some of the strongest evidence comes from a project conducted from 2008 to 2016 that is known as the Turnaway Study. The study followed pregnant people seeking abortion for five years and compared those who got an abortion in their first or second trimester with those who were denied one because they were farther along in their pregnancy than the clinic they visited would allow.

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Diana Greene Foster, a demographer at the University of California, San Francisco, developed the study in the mid-2000s after a Supreme Court case restricted access to abortion because of the then common belief that getting an abortion caused depression—a belief that had no evidence and that her study and others have discredited. “We really needed reliable data,” Foster says. Today’s abortion restrictions ignore both science and public opinion, she says. Scientific American talked with Foster to understand what has happened since Dobbs , how abortion affects people’s health and what’s at stake in the upcoming elections.

[ An edited transcript of the interview follows. ]

When people decide they want an abortion and are denied care, what happens next? How many people find a different route to get an abortion or opt for adoption?

In the Turnaway Study, about 20 percent of the people who were denied abortions managed to get one somewhere else. Those people were a little earlier in pregnancy, so there was some place they could go that would treat them. But if you’re denied an abortion at the end of the second trimester, there are so few places you can go that most people [in that situation] have carried the pregnancy to term.

When people who were denied an abortion gave birth, we found, just under 10 percent placed that child for adoption. More people considered it, but adoption is not an easy thing. When we talked later to two of the people who made that decision, they both had had unwanted pregnancies again, and neither chose adoption again. And the people who did place the child for adoption are the group that’s most likely to say they still wish they could have had the abortion. Carrying a pregnancy to term and surrendering a child is not at all easy. It’s often taken for granted by people who think that the solution to abortion is adoption; they overlook how difficult that is.

And do you have any sense of whether that breakdown has been changing since Dobbs?

I don’t know—that will be super interesting, and we just don’t have the data yet. Often, I think, people want to say, “Oh, Dobbs happened in June of 2022, so we should see effects in 2022.” But people who are pregnant in 2022 most likely delivered in 2023 if they delivered, and data from 2023 aren’t immediately available in 2024. We don’t have a lot of the vital statistics or adoption data. The data on abortions have been made available—some of them are estimates, but they do seem to show that there’s been an increase in abortion, not a decrease.

Why would that be?

There’s been a huge amount of money and attention put into helping people get their abortions. And I think that was, like, rage donations after Dobbs . I don’t know if that’s sustainable . And then these innovations in getting people access to medication abortion [through the drug mifepristone] almost certainly made a big difference as well.

How do the financial and social consequences of abortion denial ripple down to the children that resulted from such cases over the course of their life?

An American scientist working with Czech scientists followed kids born in what is now the Czech Republic in the 1960s because their mom was denied an abortion by a hospital panel. He showed the kids born of pregnancies where the mom was denied [compared with children whose parent didn’t request an abortion] had worse outcomes for 35 years. But that’s a little dated and a different context.

In the Turnaway Study we followed people for five years. If you ask women why they want an abortion, 60 percent of them are already mothers, and many say that they want an abortion to take care of the kids they already have. And we see worse outcomes for those kids who are born despite these concerns in terms of achievement of developmental milestones and economic security within the family.

And then we looked at kids who were born because the mom was denied an abortion and the next kid born to someone after they had received an abortion—so if someone gets an abortion but then becomes pregnant within the five years of the study and carries that pregnancy to term. You see economic hardship that is concentrated among the kids born because of abortion denial but also worse maternal bonding.

How is the study relevant to the post- Dobbs landscape?

Pregnant people are really determined [to get an abortion] when they’re not ready to have the baby. So we shouldn’t be surprised by the lengths people will go to end that pregnancy.

When Dobbs happened, I really thought a lot of people wouldn’t be able to get their abortions, and I’ve been surprised that there isn’t more evidence that people aren’t getting abortions. I’m also surprised that people aren’t harming themselves to end their pregnancy—maybe the data just haven’t come in yet. I expected that to happen because I knew people would be desperate, and I didn’t appreciate how fast the word would get out about medication abortion access and how much money was put into helping people travel.

There’s been a lot of chatter about enforcing the Comstock Act to target both abortion- and contraception-related materials sent by mail. How could that affect the abortion landscape?

I certainly am not so familiar with this kind of arcane law and why it would still be enforceable. But it would be a big problem if people couldn’t send any medical supplies or pills through the mail. Reducing people’s access to safe care seems like it will further encourage people to do things that are dangerous, and the Turnaway Study is clear about how determined people are to end pregnancies when they don’t want to be pregnant. So we should not make it harder for people to access abortion.

I assume that reducing access to contraception would also increase the number of people who look for abortions.

Yeah, that’s a good assumption. People often rightly think that the risk of pregnancy is low. So lots of people have sex without intending to make a baby. And usually, even if they don’t use a contraceptive method, they usually don’t get pregnant. But there’s a chance of it, and restricting access to contraception makes it more likely people will become pregnant. And I don’t think it makes it very likely they will stop having sex.

How does public opinion see the science on this?

I am kind of surprised, given how much stigma is in our society about abortion, that public opinion is so firmly on the side of trusting people with their decisions. Most people haven’t done the work I’ve done to know that lots of people become pregnant when they aren’t ready and that when they decide to have an abortion, they’re doing it because they feel that it’s best for themselves and their kids and their future kids or their life trajectory. I am amazed that public opinion [in support of abortion] is as strong as it is, given that I don’t know that that message has fully disseminated. I think people see it as a battle between individual decision-making and government decision-making and, on that basis alone, feel that abortion rights are correct. [ Editor’s Note: A 2023 Gallup poll found that 85 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal under either certain or any circumstances .]

What have you been working on since the Turnaway Study wrapped up?

I am leading a study about the end of Roe [the 1973 case that protected abortion rights nationwide], which has been recruiting people as clinics close—the last people who received abortions in their state compared with people who sought abortions after. We’ve also been recruiting through hotlines to get people who are trying to get help to travel for abortions, and we’re continuing the recruitment for that. That work suggests that in states with bans, women are getting their abortions but at a significant delay of about a week.

Legalized Abortion and the Public Health: Report of a Study (1975)

Chapter: summary and conclusions.

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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The legal status of abortion in the United States became a heightened national issue with the January 1973 rulings by the Supreme Court that severely limited states' rights to control the procedure. The Court's decisions on the historic cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton precluded any state interference with the doctor-patient decision on abortion during the first trimester (three months) of pregnancy. During the second trimester, a state could intervene only to the extent of insisting on safe medical practices "reasonably related to maternal health." And for approximately the final trimester of a pregnancy—what the Court called "the state subsequent to viability" of a fetus—a state could forbid abortion unless medical judgment found it necessary "for the preservation of the life or health of the mother." The rulings crystallized opposition to abortion, led to the intro- duction of national and state legislation to curtail or prohibit it, and generated political pressures for a national debate on the issue. Against this background of concerns about abortion, the Institute of Medicine in 1974 called together a committee to review the existing evidence on the relationship between legalized abortion and the health of the public. The study group was asked to examine the medical risks to women who obtained legal abortions, and to document changes in the risks as legal abortion became more available. Although there have been other publications on particular relationships between abortion and health, the Institute's study is an attempt to enlist scholars, researchers, health practitioners, and concerned lay persons in a more comprehensive analysis of the available medical information on the subject. Ethical issues of abortion are not discussed in this analysis, nor are questions concerning the fetus in abortion. The study group recog- nizes that this approach implies an ethical position with which some may disagree. The emphasis of the study is on the health effects of abortion, not on the alternatives to abortion.

Abortion legislation and practices are important factors in the relationship between abortion and health status. In order to examine legislation and court decisions that have affected the availability of legal abortion in the U.S., the study group classified the laws and practices into three categories: restrictive conditions, under which abortion is prohibited or permitted only to save the pregnant woman's life; moderately restrictive conditions, under which abortion is per- mitted with approval by several physicians, in a wider range of circumstances to preserve the woman's physical or mental health, prevent the birth of a child with severe genetic or congenital defects, or terminate a pregnancy caused by rape or incest; and non-restrictive conditions, under which abortion essentially is available according to the terms of the Supreme Court ruling. Before 1967, all abortion laws in the United States could be classified as restrictive. Easing of restrictions began in 1967 with Colorado, and soon thereafter 12 other states also adopted moderately restrictive legislation to expand the conditions under which therapeutic abortion could be obtained. In 1970, four states (Alaska, Hawaii, New York, and Washington) removed nearly all legal controls on abortion. Non-restrictive conditions have theoretically existed throughout all fifty states since January 22, 1973, the date of the Supreme Court decision. There is evidence that substantial numbers of illegal abortions were obtained in the U.S. when restrictive laws were in force. Although some of the illegal abortions were performed covertly by physicians in medical settings, many were conducted in unsanitary surroundings by unskilled operators or were self-induced. In this report, "illegal abortion" generally refers to those performed by a non-physician or the woman herself. The medical risks associated with the last two types of illegal abortions are patently greater than with the first. A recent analysis of data from the first year of New York's non- restrictive abortion legislation indicates that approximately 70 percent of the abortions obtained legally in New York City would otherwise have been obtained illegally. Replacement of legal for illegal abortions also is reflected in the substantial decline in the number of reported complications and deaths due to other-than-legal abortions since non- restrictive practices began to be implemented in the United States. The number of all known abortion-related deaths declined from 128 in 1970 to 47 in 1973; those deaths specifically attributed to other-than-legal abortions (i.e., both illegal and spontaneous) dropped from 111 to 25 during the same period, with much of that decline attributed to a reduced incidence of illegal abortions. Increased use of effective con- traception may also have played a role in the decline of abortion-related deaths. Methods most frequently used in the United States to induce abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy are suction (vacuum aspiration) or dilatation and curettage (D&C). Abortions in the second trimester are usually performed by replacing part of the amniotic fluid that surrounds

the fetus with a concentrated salt solution (saline abortion), which usually induces labor 24 to 48 hours later. Other second trimester methods are hysterotomy, a surgical entry into the uterus; hysterectomy, which is the removal of the uterus; and, recently, the injection into the uterine cavity of a prostaglandin, a substance that causes muscular contractions that expel the fetus. Statistics on legal abortion are collected for the U.S. government by the Center for Disease Control. CDC's most recent nationwide data are for 1973, the year of the Supreme Court decision. Some of those figures are: — The 615,800 legal abortions reported in 1973 were an increase of approximately 29,000 over the number reported in 1972. These probably are underestimates of the actual number of abortions performed because some states have not yet developed adequate abortion reporting systems. — The abortion ratio (number of abortions per 1,000 live births) increased from 180 in 1972 to 195 in 1973. — More than four out of five abortions were performed in the first trimester, most often by suction or D&C. — Approximately 25 percent of the reported 1973 abortions were obtained outside the woman's home state. In 1972, before the Supreme Court decision, 44 percent of the reported abortions had been obtained outside the home state of the patient, primarily in New York and the District of Columbia. — Approximately one-third of the women obtaining abortions were less than 20 years old, another third were between 20 and 25, and the remaining third over 25 years of age. — In all states where data were available, about 25 percent of the women obtaining abortions were married. — White women obtained 68 percent of all reported abortions, but non-white women had abortion ratios about one-third greater than white women. In 1972, non-white women had abortion rates (abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age) about twice those of whites in three states from which data were available to analyze. A national survey of hospitals, clinics, and physicians conducted in 1974 by The Alan Guttmacher Institute furnished data on the number of abortions performed in the U.S. during 1973, itemized by state and type of provider. A total of 745,400 abortions were reported in the survey, a figure higher than the 615,800 abortions reported in 1973 to CDC. The Guttmacher Institute obtains its data from providers of health services, while CDC gets most of its data from state health departments.

Risks of medical complications associated with legal abortions are difficult to evaluate because of problems of definition and subjective physician judgment. Available information from 66 centers is provided by the Joint Program for the Study of Abortion, undertaken by The Population Council in 1970-1971. The JPSA study surveyed almost 73,000 legal abortions. It used a restricted definition of major complications, which included unintended major surgery, one or more blood transfusions, three or more days of fever, and several other categories involving prolonged illness or permanent impairment. Although this study also collected data on minor complica- tions, such as one day of fever post-operatively, the data on major com- plications are probably more significant. The major complication rates published by the JPSA study and summarized below relate to women who had abortions in local facilities and from whom follow-up information was obtained. — Complications in women not obtaining concurrent sterilization and with no pre-existing medical problems (e.g., diabetes, heart disease, or gynecological problems) occurred 0.6 times per 100 abortions in the first trimester and 2.1 per 100 in the second trimester. — Complications in women not obtaining concurrent sterilization, but having pre-existing problems, occurred 2.0 times per 100 in the first trimester and 6.7 in the second. — Complications in women obtaining concurrent sterilization and not having pre-existing problems occurred 7.2 times per 100 in the first trimester and 8.0 in the second. — Women with both concurrent sterilization and pre-existing problems experienced complications approximately 17 times per 100 abortions regardless of trimester. The relatively high complication rates associated with sterilization in the JPSA study would probably be lower today because new sterilization techniques require minimal surgery and carry lower rates of complications. The frequency of medical complications due to illegal abortions cannot be calculated precisely, but the trend in these complications can be estimated from the number of hospital admissions due to septic and incomplete abortion—two adverse consequences of the illegal procedure.

The number of such admissions in New York City's municipal hospitals declined from 6,524 in 1969 to 3,253 in 1973; most restrictions on legal abortion in New York City were lifted in July of 1970. In Los Angeles, the number of reported hospital admissions for septic abortions declined from 559 in 1969 to 119 in 1971. Other factors, such as an increased use of effective contraception and a decreasing rate of unwanted pregnancies may have contributed to these declines, but it is probable that the introduction of less restrictive abortion legislation was a major factor. There has not been enough experience with legal abortion in the U.S. for conclusions to be drawn about long-term complications, particularly for women obtaining repeated legal abortions. Some studies from abroad suggest that long-term complications may include prematurity, miscarriage, or ectopic pregnancies in future pregnancies, or infertility. But research findings from countries having long experience with legal abortion are inconsistent among studies and the relevance of these data to the U.S. is not known; methods of abortion, medical services, and socio-economic characteristics vary from one country to another. Risks of maternal death associated with legal abortion are low—1.7 deaths per 100,000 first trimester procedures in 1972 and 1973—and less than the risks associated with illegal abortion, full-term pregnancy, and most surgical procedures. The 1973 mortality rate for a full-term pregnancy was 14 deaths per 100,000 live vaginal deliveries; the 1969 rate for cesarean sections was 111 deaths per 100,000 deliveries. For second trimester abortions, the combined 1972-73 mortality ratio was 12.2 deaths per 100,000 abortions. (For comparison, the surgical removal of the tonsils and adenoids had a mortality risk of five deaths per 100,000 operations in 1969). When the mortality risk of legal abortion is examined by length of gestation it becomes apparent that the mortality risks increase not only from the first to the second trimester, but also by each week of ges- tation. For example, during 1972-73, the mortality ratio for legal abortions performed at eight weeks or less was 0.5, and for those performed between nine and 10 weeks was 1.7 deaths per 100,000 legal abortions. At 11 to 12 weeks the mortality ratio increased to 4.2 deaths, and by 16 to 20 weeks, the ratio was more than 17 deaths per 100,000 abortions. Hysterotomy and hysterectomy, methods performed infrequently in both trimesters, had a combined mortality ratio of 61.3 deaths per 100,000 procedures. Some data on the mortality associated with illegal abortion are avail- lable from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and from CDC. In 1961 there were 320 abortion-related deaths reported in the U.S., most of them presumed by the medical profession to be from illegal abortion. By 1973, total reported deaths had declined to 47, of which 16 were specifi- cally attributed to illegal abortions. There has been a steady decline in the mortality rates (number of deaths per 100,000 women aged 15-44) associated with other-than-legal abortion for both white and non-white women, but in 1973 the mortality rate for non-white women (0.29) was almost ten times greater than that reported for white women (0.03).

Psychological effects of legal abortion are difficult to evaluate for reasons that include lack of information on pre-abortion psychological status, ambiguous terminology, and the absence of standardized measurements. The cumulative evidence in recent years indicates that although it may be a stressful experience, abortion is not associated with any detectable increase in the incidence of mental illness. The depression or guilt feelings reported by some women following abortion are generally described as mild and temporary. This experience, however, does not necessarily apply to women with a previous history of psychiatric illness; for them, abortion may be followed by continued or aggravated mental illness. The JPSA survey led to an estimate of the incidence of post-abortion psychosis ranging from 0.2 to 0.4 per 1,000 legal abortions. This is lower than the post-partum psychosis rate of one to two per 1,000 deliveries in the United States. Psychological factors also bear on whether a woman obtains a first or second-trimester abortion. Two studies in particular suggest that women who delay abortion into the later period may have more feelings of ambiva- lence, denial of the pregnancy, or objection on religious grounds, than those obtaining abortions in the first trimester. It is also apparent, however, that some second-trimester abortions result from procedural delays, difficulties in obtaining a pregnancy test, locating appropriate counseling, or arranging and financing the procedure. Diagnosis of severe defects of a fetus well before birth has greatly advanced in the past decade. Developments in the techniques of amniocen- tesis and cell culture have enabled a number of genetic defects and other congenital disorders to be detected in the second trimester of pregnancy. Prenatal diagnosis and the opportunity to terminate an affected pregnancy by a legal abortion may help many women who would have refrained from becoming pregnant or might have given birth to an abnormal child, to bear children unaffected by the disease they fear. Abortion, with or with- out prenatal diagnosis, also can be used in instances where there is reasonable risk that the fetus may be affected by birth defects from non-genetic causes, such as those caused by exposure of the woman to rubella virus infection or x-rays, or by her ingestion of drugs known to damage the fetus. Almost 60 inherited metabolic disorders, such as Tay-Sachs disease, potentially can be diagnosed before birth. More than 20 of these diseases already have been diagnosed with reasonaable accuracy by means of amniocentesis and other procedures. The techniques also can be used to identify a fetus with abnormal chromosomes, as in Down's syndrome (mongolism), and to discriminate between male and female fetuses, which in such diseases as hemophilia would allow determination of whether the fetus was at risk of being affected or simply at risk of being a hereditary carrier of the disorder.

In North America, amniocentesis was performed in more than 6,000 second-trimester pregnancies between 1967 and 1974. The diagnostic accuracy was close to 100 percent and complication rates were about two percent. Less than 10 percent of the diagnoses disclosed an affected fetus, meaning that the great majority of parents at risk averted an unnecessary abortion and were able to carry an unaffected child to term. There are many limitations to the use of prenatal diagnosis, especially for mass screening purposes. Amniocentesis is a fairly expensive procedure, and relatively few medical personnel are qualified to administer it and carry out the necessary diagnostic tests. Only a small number of genetic disorders can now be identified by means of amniocentesis and many couples still have no way to determine whether or not they are to be the parents of a child with genetic defects. Nevertheless, the avail- ability of a legal abortion expands the options available to a woman who faces a known risk of having an affected child. Abortion as a substitute for contraception is one possibility raised by the adoption of non-restrictive abortion laws. Limited data do not allow definitive conclusions, but they suggest that the introduction of non-restrictive abortion laws in the U.S. has not lead to any documented decline in demand for contraceptive services. Among women who sought abortion and who had previously not used contraception or had used it poorly, there is some evidence that they may have begun to practice contraception because contraceptives were made available to them at the time of their abortion. The health aspects of this issue bear on the higher mortality and mor- bidity associated with abortion as compared with contraceptive use, and on the possibility that if women rely on abortion rather than contraception they may have repeated abortions, for which the risk of long-term compli- cations is not known. The incidence of repeated legal abortions is little known because legal abortion has only been widely available in the U.S. for a few years. Data from New York City indicate that during the first two years of non-restrictive laws 2.45 percent of the abortions obtained by residents were repeat procedures. If those two years are divided into six-month periods, repeated legal abortions as a percent of the total rose from 0.01 percent in the first period to 6.02 percent in the last. Part of this increase is attributable to a statistical fact: the longer non-restrictive laws are in effect, the greater the number of women eligible to have repeated legal abortions. Perhaps, too, the reporting system has improved. In any case, some low incidence of repeated abortions is to be expected because none of the current contraceptive methods is completely failureproof, nor are they likely to be used with maximum care on all occasions.

8 A recent study has suggested that one additional factor contributing to the incidence of repeated abortions is that abortion facilities may not routinely provide contraceptive services at the time of the procedure. This is of concern because of recent evidence that ovulation usually oc- curs within five weeks and perhaps as early as 10 days after an abortion. The conclusions of the study group: — Many women will seek to terminate an unwanted pregnancy by abortion whether it is legal or not. Although the mortality and morbidity . associated with illegal abortion cannot be fully measured, they are clearly greater than the risks associated with legal abortion. Evidence suggests that legislation and practices that permit women to obtain abortions in proper medical surroundings will lead to fewer deaths and a lower rate of medical complications than restrictive legislation and practices. —• The substantial differences between the mortality and morbidity associated with legal abortion in the first and second trimesters suggest that laws, medical practices, and educational programs should enable and encourage women who have chosen abortion to obtain it in the first three months of pregnancy. — More research is needed on the consequences of abortion on health status. Of highest priority are investigations of long-term medical complications, particularly after multiple abortions the effects of abortion and denied abortion on the mental health and social welfare of individuals and families the factors of motivation, behavior, and access associated with contraceptive use and the choice of abortion.

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Did Legalized Abortion Lower Crime?

This paper examines the relationship between the legalization of abortion and subsequent decreases in crime. In a current study, researchers estimate that the legalization of abortion explains over half of the recent decline in national crime rates. The association is identified by correlating changes in crime with changes in the abortion ratio weighted by the proportion of the criminal population exposed to legalized abortion. In this paper, I use an alternative identification strategy. I analyze changes in homicide and arrest rates among teens and young adults born before and after 1970 in states that legalized abortion prior to Roe v. Wade. I compare these changes with variation in homicide and arrest rates among cohorts from the same period but who were unexposed to legalized abortion. I find little evidence to support the claim that legalized abortion caused the reduction in crime. I conclude that the association between abortion and crime is not causal, but most likely the result of confounding from unmeasured period effects such as changes in crack cocaine use and its spillover effects.

• Acknowledgements and Disclosures

MARC RIS BibTeΧ

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Published Versions

Joyce, Ted. " Did Legalized Abortion Lower Crime? " Journal of Human Resources XXXIX, 1 (2004): 1-28.

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In addition to working papers , the NBER disseminates affiliates’ latest findings through a range of free periodicals — the NBER Reporter , the NBER Digest , the Bulletin on Retirement and Disability , the Bulletin on Health , and the Bulletin on Entrepreneurship  — as well as online conference reports , video lectures , and interviews .

Echoes of the Past: Understanding Abortion Through Historical Lens

T he legal status of abortion has always been a contentious and dynamic issue with wide regional variations. The 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling, which upheld a woman's constitutional right to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy, established the legal right to an abortion in the United States. However, there is still a great deal of controversy around abortion, and efforts to restrict or broaden access to abortion services continue.

Historical Perspectives on Abortion

To fully appreciate the current state of abortion laws, it's essential to delve into the historical context. Abortion has been practiced throughout history, often in unsafe and unregulated conditions. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, restrictive laws in the United States began to emerge, criminalizing abortion except to save the mother's life.

It wasn't until 1973 that the Roe v. Wade decision brought significant changes. The Supreme Court ruled that a woman has the right to choose to have an abortion under the constitutional right to privacy, but also acknowledged that the state has a legitimate interest in protecting the potential life of the fetus, which can become compelling in later stages of pregnancy. This ruling effectively legalized abortion across the country.

Arguments for and Against Abortion

Proponents of Legal Abortion

Proponents of legal abortion argue that it is essential for women's reproductive rights and healthcare. They believe that women should have the autonomy to decide about their bodies, including whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy. Legal abortion, they argue, ensures that women have access to safe and medically supervised procedures, reducing the risks associated with illegal or unsafe abortions.

Moreover, proponents stress the importance of addressing the broader social and economic factors that can lead to unplanned pregnancies. They advocate for comprehensive sex education, access to contraception, and support for low-income families as essential components of reducing the demand for abortion.

Opponents of Legal Abortion

Opponents of legal abortion, often driven by religious or moral beliefs, argue that it is the termination of a human life and should be considered ethically and legally unacceptable. They advocate for the protection of the unborn and may support restrictions on abortion access, such as waiting periods, mandatory counseling, or bans on late-term abortions.

Some argue that advancements in science and technology, such as ultrasound imaging, have provided a clearer understanding of fetal development, further bolstering their position that life begins at conception.

The Ongoing Debate

The debate over the legality of abortion remains one of the most polarizing and emotional issues in modern society. It involves complex considerations of individual rights, medical ethics, and moral values. The legal status of abortion is influenced by cultural, political, and legal factors, making it a topic that continues to be vigorously discussed and debated.

Global Perspectives on Abortion Laws

Beyond the United States, abortion laws vary widely around the world. In some countries, abortion is fully legal and accessible; in others, it is highly restricted or prohibited. The reasons for these differences often reflect cultural, religious, and political factors unique to each nation.

For example, countries like Canada and much of Western Europe have relatively liberal abortion laws prioritizing women's right to choose. In contrast, countries with strong religious influences, such as Ireland (before a 2018 referendum) and several Middle Eastern nations, had or continue to have strict abortion restrictions.

The Role of Healthcare Providers

In many countries, healthcare providers are crucial in the abortion debate. Some doctors and healthcare facilities may refuse abortion services due to personal or religious beliefs. This leads to discussions about balancing a healthcare provider's conscience rights and a patient's right to legal medical procedures.

Access and Equity Issues

Access to abortion services is also a significant concern. Even in countries where abortion is legal, disparities in access exist. Rural areas often have fewer providers, and financial barriers can limit access for low-income individuals. This lack of access can lead women to resort to unsafe methods or travel long distances to obtain the care they need.

The legal status of abortion remains a complex and multifaceted issue, shaped by a myriad of factors, including historical, cultural, religious, and political influences. The debate surrounding abortion is unlikely to be resolved definitively, and it will continue to evolve as societies grapple with the intersection of individual rights, medical ethics, and moral convictions. As the conversation persists, it is essential to consider the diverse perspectives and circumstances that contribute to the ongoing dialogue about abortion's legality and morality.

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Tracking Abortion Bans Across the Country

By The New York Times Updated May 1, 4:40 P.M. ET

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Twenty-one states ban abortion or restrict the procedure earlier in pregnancy than the standard set by Roe v. Wade, which governed reproductive rights for nearly half a century until the Supreme Court overturned the decision in 2022.

In some states, the fight over abortion access is still taking place in courtrooms, where advocates have sued to block bans and restrictions. Other states have moved to expand access to abortion by adding legal protections.

Latest updates

• The Arizona state legislature voted to repeal an 1864 ban on nearly all abortions. Officials warned that the near-total ban may be briefly enforceable this summer until the repeal takes effect in the fall. A 15-week ban remains in effect.
• A ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy took effect in Florida , following a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court that the privacy protections of the state’s Constitution do not extend to abortion.

The New York Times is tracking abortion laws in each state after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , which ended the constitutional right to an abortion.

Where abortion is legal

In a few states that have enacted bans or restrictions, abortion remains legal for now as courts determine whether these laws can take effect. Abortion is legal in the rest of the country, and many states have added new protections since Dobbs.

Ban in effect

Note: TK note here.

Legal for now

State details.

More details on the current status of abortion in each state are below.

An earlier version of this article misstated the legal status of abortion in Utah. As of 4 p.m. on June 24, the state attorney general had issued a statement saying the state’s abortion ban had been triggered, but it had not yet been authorized by the legislature’s general counsel. By 8:30 p.m., the counsel authorized the ban and it went into effect.

A table in an earlier version of this article misstated which abortion ban is being challenged in Texas state court. Abortion rights supporters are challenging a pre-Roe ban, not the state’s trigger ban.

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the legal status of abortion in Indiana. While Indiana abortion providers stopped offering abortion services in anticipation of an abortion ban taking effect on Aug. 1, the law did not take effect.