How abortion access can impact personal finance: Turnaway Study author

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How ********* access can impact personal finance: Turnaway Study author

Arizona residents rally for ********* rights on April 16, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Gina Ferazzi | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

********* is an important issue for many voters, especially young women, heading into the November election.

********* access is about more than politics, or health care: It’s also a personal finance issue, said Diana Greene Foster, a demographer who studies the effects of unwanted pregnancies on people’s lives.

Foster, a professor at the University of California San Francisco, led

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, a landmark research study on the socioeconomic outcomes for Americans who are “turned away” from *********. The study tracked 1,000 women over a five-year ******* ending January 2016. The women in the study had all sought abortions at some point before the study commenced; not all received one.

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In November, voters in

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— Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota — will choose whether to adopt state ballot measures about ********* access.

Such ballot measures follow a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022 that struck down Roe v. Wade, the ruling that had established a constitutional right to ********* five decades earlier.

Nationally, women under age 30 rank ********* as the most important issue to their vote on Election Day, according to the

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, which polled 649 women from Sept. 12 to Oct. 1. It ranked as the third-most-important issue among women voters of all ages, behind inflation and threats to democracy, according to the KFF poll.

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********* is among the least-important issues for registered Republicans, according to a

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of 9,720 U.S. adults conducted Aug. 26 to Sept. 2.

CNBC spoke to Foster about the economics of ********* access and the financial impacts of the end of Roe v. Wade.

The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Low earners most likely to seek an *********

Greg Iacurci: Can you describe the population of women that typically seek abortions in the U.S.?

Diana Greene Foster: One good thing about The Turnaway Study is that our demographics closely resemble national demographics on who gets abortions.

More than half are already parenting a child. More than half are in their 20s. A small ********* are teenagers, even though lots of people think teenagers are the main recipients.

It’s predominantly people who are low-income. That’s been increasingly the case over time. It’s become disproportionately concentrated among people with the least economic resources.

GI: Why is that?

DGF: I think wealthier people have better access to contraceptives, even after the

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[Medical providers] still give contraceptives out. There are 20 states that have laws that say you should be able to get a year’s supply at a time, but almost nowhere is that actually available. The law says you should be able to get it, but you don’t. I led the studies that showed that if you make people go back for resupply every month or three months, as is very commonly done, you’re much more likely to have an unintended pregnancy. The laws have changed, but practice hasn’t changed. Access is not perfect yet.

Also, some people have abortions who have intended pregnancies because something went wrong with their health, with the fetus’ health, with their life circumstances. So even contraceptives aren’t the ultimate solution.

Greater likelihood of ******** and evictions

GI: What are the economic findings of your research?

DGF: When we follow people over time, we see that people who are denied an ********* are more likely to say that their household income is below the federal ******** line. They’re more likely to say that they don’t have enough money to meet basic living needs like food, housing and transportation.

Diana Greene Foster

Courtesy: Diana Greene Foster

Wanting to provide for the kids you already have is a common reason for *********. We see that the existing children are more likely to be in ******** and in households where there aren’t enough resources if their mom couldn’t get an *********.

[They’re also]

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to have evictions, have a larger amount of debt if they’re denied an *********.

GI: Can we quantify those impacts?

DGF: For example, six months after seeking an *********, 61% of those denied an ********* were below the ******** line compared to just under half — 45% — of those who received an *********. The higher odds of being below the [federal ******** line] persisted through four years.

And based on credit reports, we find that women denied abortions experienced significant increases in the amount of debt 30 days or more past due of $1,749.70, a 78% increase relative to their pre-pregnancy [average]. The number of public records, such as bankruptcies, evictions and court judgements, significantly increased for those denied abortions, by 81%.

GI: Why does this happen?

DGF: Having a **** is a massive investment. Deciding to parent a child relies on an amount of social support and housing security and access to health care, and our country isn’t at all set up to provide those things for low-income people.

Why costs are both rising and falling for women

GI: Your study took place at a time when Roe v. Wade was still the law. That’s

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DGF: In The Turnaway Study, people were denied abortions because they were too far along in pregnancy, but now you can be denied an ********* at any point in pregnancy in something like

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. So, it potentially affects a much larger group of people.

But there have been other changes which have to do with resources to help people travel and information about how to order medication ********* pills online. So, it isn’t the case that everyone who wants an ********* is now carrying a pregnancy to term.

There has been a lot of effort to circumvent state laws, and I think The Turnaway Study really reveals why. People understand their circumstances, and they are very motivated to get care, even when their state tries to ban it.

GI: What are the financial impacts some women in those states might encounter?

DGF: I’m actually studying the economic costs of the end of Roe and travel [expense]. Costs went up by $200 for people traveling out of state. People were delayed more than a week.

Under Roe, people could drive to an ********* clinic or get a ride; [after,] they were much more likely to be flying, having to take more modes of transportation. Over half stayed overnight. They traveled an average of 10 hours. That means taking time off work too. So, it dramatically increased the cost for those who traveled to get an *********.

There are people who ordered pills online who are not [included] in the study. For those people, the cost may have gone down because it’s possible to order pills online for less than $30.

But you have to know about it, and you have to have an address, and you have to have internet, and it takes a level of knowledge to be able to pull that off. There can be a need for follow up medical care, so you have to be able to get that.

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