New study connects economic struggle with abortion inaccessibility
Economic Policy Institute behind analysis
A new Economic Policy Institute Report underscores the connection between financial limitations and abortion bans in states that enact them.
Asha Banerjee was the author of the analysis. She argues for leaders to couple criticisms of abortion deserts with sharp words against their anti-union legislation. Banerjee also pointed out how abortion inaccessibility can lead to greater poverty, which in turn can lead to over-incarceration as more people commit crimes caused by the lack of money and poor living conditions.
“The human argument is also the economic argument,” Banerjee said. “And in taking away abortion access from other people who might seek an abortion, it takes away their ability to make their own choices in the economy.”
States with abortion bans in general have lower minimum wages, half as much unionization, lower rates of Medicaid expansion and an incarceration rate 1.5 times as high as states with abortion protections.
Many of these states are already economically challenged and some critics of her study may say these would be problems regardless of whether abortion happened in those areas. Banerjee responded by saying that abortion inaccessibility exacerbates poverty and crime rates.
“It's not as if there will not be poverty with or without abortion bans,” Banerjee said. “It's that abortion bans add another level of economic insecurity to people's lives.”
Banerjee said there would be high costs to abortion bans–to the individual, public health, and the economic well-being of individuals living there. She said it will have a cascading effect.
“It's going to be really, really dire and just a tragedy of an economic policy that we're going to have to examine in the future,” Banerjee said. “But one that hopefully economic policymakers and policymakers as a whole will take seriously.”
The report is below.
