Abortion Was Never Equal for Asian and Pacific Islander Women
Christina Baal-Owens of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum outlines how structural barriers have long restricted abortion access for Asian and Pacific Islander women.
For Christina Baal-Owens, Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF), the central misunderstanding in the abortion debate has always been the assumption that legality equals access. Long before Roe v. Wade was overturned, she argues, Asian and Pacific Islander women were already navigating a reproductive healthcare system that failed to account for language, immigration status, poverty, geography, and cultural stigma. The fall of Roe did not introduce new inequities so much as expose—and intensify—those that had long been ignored.
“Our community feels very under attack,” Baal-Owens said.
From Baal-Owens’ perspective, abortion has never existed in isolation from other forms of healthcare or from broader systems of power. That is why NAPAWF grounds its work in reproductive justice rather than narrow legal access. Even when abortion was constitutionally protected, many AAPI women encountered healthcare systems that could not—or would not—communicate with them in their own languages. Translation mandates were inconsistent across states, and even where they existed, they rarely covered the full range of Asian and Pacific Islander languages spoken in the United States. For Baal-Owens, this failure is not incidental; it reflects a healthcare system designed without AAPI women in mind.
Immigration status further shaped who could seek care safely. Baal-Owens emphasizes that for undocumented women and mixed-status families, fear has always been part of the healthcare experience. Eligibility restrictions for Medicaid and other public insurance programs excluded many from coverage altogether, while concerns about surveillance or enforcement discouraged others from interacting with formal medical systems. Abortion care, already stigmatized, was often pushed into silence and secrecy.
“Things were happening in the shadows, and there was an innate fear,” Baal-Owens said. “There’s now obviously more fear of accessing health care and having your name on different records.”
Geography compounded these barriers. Baal-Owens points out that even before Roe fell, nearly forty percent of U.S. counties lacked abortion providers. For low-income women—who make up the majority of abortion patients—travel was not a simple inconvenience but a decisive obstacle. Time off work, transportation costs, childcare, and lodging all added layers of difficulty that made abortion functionally inaccessible for many AAPI women despite its legality.
“If the health care is not even available in your own state and you have to travel, these things are exacerbated,” Baal-Owens said. “And then again, there’s the cost and the funding of being able to get yourself to a place and to find a provider, and all of these things are more difficult when English is not your first language.”
Cultural stigma, Baal-Owens notes, remains one of the most underestimated barriers. In many Asian and Pacific Islander communities, abortion is rarely discussed openly, shaped by religious traditions, family expectations, and histories of trauma. This silence does not disappear when abortion is legal; instead, it isolates individuals further, making it harder to seek information, support, or care. From Baal-Owens’ view, stigma is not merely cultural but structural, reinforced by systems that fail to provide culturally competent outreach or care.
“Stigma remains one of the main barriers within our community, whether or not it is legal in your state or not,’ Baal-Owens said. “So many AAPI women who come from cultures where abortion is frowned upon, and is not something that is an option that is accepted. They’re less likely to access abortion, whether or not it is something that they actually want or would benefit them.”
The overturning of Roe has sharpened every one of these pressures. Baal-Owens highlights that roughly one-quarter of AAPI women of reproductive age now live in states with abortion bans, with particularly severe impacts in states like Texas. Certain communities—such as Burmese and Nepalese women—are disproportionately concentrated in states where abortion is no longer legal. For Baal-Owens, this uneven geography underscores why AAPI women cannot be treated as a monolith. Where someone lives, what language they speak, and their immigration status now determine whether abortion is merely difficult to access or entirely out of reach.
Immigration enforcement has further narrowed the path to care. Baal-Owens describes a climate in which fear permeates everyday life, making even routine interactions with institutions feel risky. For those seeking abortion care, this fear can delay decisions, limit options, or push care further underground. In her assessment, the current environment does not just restrict abortion—it destabilizes trust in healthcare systems altogether.
Baal-Owens is particularly critical of how the model minority myth obscures these realities. The assumption that AAPI women are uniformly educated, financially secure, and fluent in English erases the deep disparities within and between communities. Some AAPI women earn close to the national average; others earn a fraction of it. These differences shape who can afford to travel, who can miss work, and who can navigate complex legal and medical systems. For Baal-Owens, the myth does real harm by distorting policy priorities, limiting funding for language access, and sidelining organizations that serve AAPI women most affected by abortion restrictions.
She is equally clear that Pacific Islander women are often rendered invisible when grouped into broader AAPI data. Lower average incomes, geographic isolation, limited health infrastructure, and the lasting effects of colonialism all shape reproductive healthcare access for Pacific Islander communities. When these distinctions are ignored, Baal-Owens argues, policies fail by design.
From Baal-Owens’ perspective, repairing the damage of the post-Roe era requires more than restoring a legal standard. It demands comprehensive language-access mandates in healthcare, the elimination of abortion and maternal-care deserts, and the ability to use federal funds for abortion care through Medicaid and Medicare. It also requires expanding healthcare access regardless of immigration status. That is why NAPAWF has taken a leadership role in advancing the HEAL Act coalition, working alongside partners such as the Latina Institute, and why Baal-Owens stresses solidarity across communities of color as essential rather than symbolic.
“Why we believe in intersectionality is so important is that together as a group of women of color, we represent a spectrum of different cultures and language issues,” Baal-Owens said.
“We know that a lot of the legislators and the decision-makers that we talk to aren’t aware that the issues range between the communities. They aren’t aware that race and gender are not the only issues in reproductive health care, that structural racism is a barrier, and remains a barrier to access to health care. And for us, working together with these groups really is a show of force.”