Economic Justice

Feb 14

One thing has been proven time and again: lack of access to quality reproductive healthcare has a lasting impact on a person’s or family’s finances.

In some ways, that feels fairly obvious: unplanned events create unplanned expenses. When reproductive healthcare options are restricted, however, and people are forced to make certain decisions about their pregnancy, there is often a cascading effect that can and does impact not only their personal finances, but also the potential for economic security long-term.

Unplanned pregnancies – which can happen more often when people don’t have adequate access to comprehensive sex education or quality healthcare – can impact educational opportunities. For example, being forced to carry a pregnancy to term instead of finishing a degree can affect future job opportunities, which can affect a person’s ability to earn a livable income, and more. This is the unseen price people are forced to pay for restrictions on their reproductive choices.

The procedural cost of an abortion alone can have a huge financial impact. Cost varies widely for many reasons, including gestation, location, and insurance. Most first trimester procedures cost around $500, but after the first trimester, costs climb each week the pregnancy continues up to multiple thousands of dollars just for the procedure. Then there’s location: even before the fall of Roe, nearly 90% of counties in the United States didn’t have an abortion clinic and more were closing at a rapid clip over the last two decades. That number has only gone up since and there are now 14 states with no clinic at all. When clinics close, people must travel: the longer and further they have to travel, the more expensive it gets.

Insurance also isn’t always an option: coverage is not a given in the first place in the United States, especially for Black and brown communities. The Hyde Amendment also restricts federally-funded Medicaid from covering abortion care and few states have protected Medicaid coverage of abortion. This means that the insurance that is most heavily used by poor and low income people – and primarily Black and brown people – does not cover abortion procedures, and many others have no insurance at all. Some private insurers also choose to not cover abortion or contraception. In these cases, all those expenses – the procedure, the travel, the logistics to make it happen – end up coming out of the pocket of people who live in a country where over half the population can’t afford any $1,000 unexpected cost.

When abortion isn’t financially accessible, neither is having a child. On top of costs, inadequate prenatal care can have lasting health impacts on the pregnant person, – which of course can have those same cascading impacts, like education disruption, unstable jobs, and financial insecurity.

To live in a world where everyone has the ability to make full reproductive choices, we have to not only advocate for reproductive healthcare but also make sure that people have the economic freedom to make those choices. That means livable wages, healthy working conditions, affordable housing, and food security, regardless of where or how you live.

TL;DR: reproductive justice is economic justice.

Researchers tracked two groups of people in their second trimester seeking abortions. Those who were turned away ended up living in poverty, were three times more likely to be unemployed, and six times more likely to receive public assistance.

A huge naturalized experiment in the US tracked those who were denied an abortion for five years. The research uncovered the high economic cost of an abortion ban and exactly who is made to bear that cost.