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.

I had a wonderful conversation the other day with VCU student and Chief Copyeditor at Ink Magazine, Monisha Mukherjee, who wrote a piece on this phenomenon called “graffiti gentrification,” which refers to city displacement as it relates to street art. Reading her article, I became engrossed with the interplay of Richmond’s art and urban economics. Something we all so deeply appreciate, standing as a symbol for social justice and the beautiful cultures of Richmond city, may be counteracting its very message. 

Richmond is extremely well-known for its street art—a highlight of the city’s famous social and cultural scene. Yet in its intricacies, in researching the areas of the city where street art is most prevalent, lies a critical issue. The most common areas for street art are also the most gentrified neighborhoods in Richmond. Landlords/city councils purposefully install street art as a way to transform a dated, less desirable neighborhood into a place that would seem trendy and socially-active, attracting younger, higher-income creatives. In doing so, they’re able to raise rent prices and place old tenants out who can no longer afford to live there—displacing historical communities. 

There is a paradoxical layer to this. At its core, graffiti—or any street art for that matter—is the language of minority youth and counterculture; a form of rebellious expression by predominantly black and brown communities. Those who were silenced by soceity made the illegal act of graffiti their voice. These same communities, however, are forced out of increasingly gentrified neighborhoods partly by a more socially-acceptable, legitimized form of the same art: murals. The takeover by murals is nothing but a tool of gentrification.

It’s no surprise that the neighborhoods in Richmond with the highest rise in murals coincide with a steady rise in property value, and that every neighborhood facing the takeover of murals was once a redlined, no-go area which would have been otherwise filled with graffiti. A prime example: the district of Jackson Ward. It’s the most historic neighborhood in the city and the most heavily gentrified/beautified—with murals painted over whitewashed, previously graffitied walls. As the socioeconomic makeup of Jackson Ward shifts towards a young, whiter population in response to beautification efforts (including, of course, murals), rent prices skyrocket. 

In speaking with Monisha, I asked her what she thought could be done at a policy level to mitigate this. For one, she held that mural artists who are commissioned by landlords to paint on buildings should pitch part of the profits back into the community and the original tenants. Even groups that conduct street walking tours through gentrified neighborhoods should pitch into helping the tenants in the neighborhoods. 

It isn’t necessarily that street art is a negative, yet it’s important for us all to acknowledge the role murals in particular can play in historical neighborhoods and bring a level of complexity to something as simple as appreciating a painting on the side of the street.