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State abortion bans could affect over half of female veterans and women with disabilities, analysis finds
State abortion bans passed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v.
Politics
State abortion bans passed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade could affect more than half of all female veterans and women with disabilities in the United States, an analysis by the National Partnership for Women and Families says.
The study published Friday by the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group found that abortion bans in the 26 states that are certain or likely to ban abortion could affect up to 2.8 million women with disabilities (53 percent of all such women in the U.S.) and 389,600 female veterans of reproductive age (also 53% of the U.S. total).
The findings shine a light on subgroups of American women who faced barriers to abortion access before the court's June 24 decision on Roe, called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, said co-author Shaina Goodman, director of reproductive health and rights at the National Partnership for Women and Families.
“When we think about who is it that is least likely to have access to broader social support — things like access to high-quality health care or transportation, or some of the other services that not only are necessary to access abortion care but necessary to mitigate the harms that are caused by lack of access to abortion care — it’s also women with disabilities and women veterans that are impacted,” Goodman said.
Goodman and co-author Katherine Gallagher Robbins, a senior fellow at the organization, analyzed five years of data, from 2016 to 2020, from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The findings are based on data on women aged 15 to 49 in the 26 states, noting not all women of reproductive age can become pregnant.
The findings do not include transgender men and nonbinary people in those states who could become pregnant, since the American Community Survey does not collect data on gender identity, the analysis said. Research suggests about 1.3 million transgender people and 1.2 million nonbinary people live in the U.S.
The analysis also did not examine the intersections between female veterans and women with disabilities, or those categories and women of color and low-income women who will also be disproportionately affected by state abortion bans, the study said.
About 58% of Native American women, 57% of Black women and 53% of low-income women live in states that have banned or are likely to ban abortion, according to the analysis.