A leaked draft of a majority opinion authored by Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito strongly suggests that the court will rule to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two landmark cases that have upheld the right to an abortion nationwide for the last half century. As such, the decision to protect abortion rights will be left up to the states, many of which are poised to ban the procedure altogether. Many fail to see abortion as something more than a “culture-war” issue, a polarizing conflict between the values and belief systems of different sociocultural groups. Yet at its root, we find abortion access to be a largely economic concern. The imminent loss of abortion rights involves the loss of economic security, financial independence, and mobility for women all across America. In the states currently likely to ban abortion following a decision to overturn Roe, an already challenging economic ecosystem of low wages, unionization, and health care accessibility will only exacerbate gender economic inequality.
These claims, furthered in Casey v Planned Parenthood, were rejected by Justice in the draft majority opinion. He posited that we can’t tangibly quantify causal effects of policy changes in abortion accessibility, invalidating the reasoning behind Roe and Casey. However, a number of economists and subsequent literature have actually examined both the detrimental effect of a denied abortion on women’s lives, as well as the individual and societal economic benefits of abortion legalization.
For one, a study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research found substantial evidence that being denied an abortion has long-term negative effects on a woman’s financial well-being. Being denied an abortion was observed to pose a higher risk of being in poverty, a lower likelihood of being employed full time, and an increase in unpaid debts and the number of public records (ie evictions and bankruptcies).
Furthermore, laws that restrict abortion providers, so-called “TRAP” laws (targeted regulation of abortion providers), have led to women in those states being less likely to move into higher-paying occupations. By contrast, literature that examined positive interdependencies of women and reproductive control validated claims on the role of legalized abortion in lower rates of teen first births and marriages as well as reduced maternal mortality for Black women. Further, the ability to delay having a child has been found to yield significantly better educational and labor market outcomes, especially among Black women.
Compounding the issue, many of the states with preexisting abortion bans presently limited by Roe are also states that have created an economic policy architecture of low wages, barely functional or funded public services, at-will employment, and no paid leave or parental support. For example, among the states which will ban abortion, the average minimum wage is $8.39, compared with $11.48 in the states that have abortion access. Similarly, 10 of the 26 anti-abortion states have not expanded Medicaid, and all but two of the states are anti-union “right-to-work” states. In these states, the denial of abortion services is one more piece in a sustained project of economic subjugation and disempowerment.
We must collectively recognize that the fall of Roe is an economic issue that would diminish the financial freedom and livelihood of women across America. Reproductive justice is critical to economic justice and protecting women’s role in the functioning of our society and economy.
