This is relevant given that women seeking abortions tend to be low-income mothers experiencing disruptive life events. In the Guttmacher Institute`s latest survey of abortion patients, 97% are adults, 49% live below the poverty line, 59% already have children, and 55% experience a disruptive life event such as job loss, partner separation or rent arrears (Jones & Jerman, 2017a and 2017b). It is no exaggeration to imagine that access to abortion could be crucial to the financial lives of these women, and recent results from The Turnaway Study7 provide empirical support for this hypothesis. In this study, an interdisciplinary team of researchers follows two groups of women who typically sought abortions during the second trimester: one group that arrived at abortion clinics and learned they were just above the gestational age limit for abortions and were „rejected,” and a second group that was just below the threshold and received an abortion. Miller, Wherry and Foster (2020) associate individuals from both groups with their Experian credit reports and observe that the financial results of both groups yielded similar results in the months leading up to the time they requested an abortion. However, as soon as a group is denied a desired abortion, it has begun to experience significant financial hardship, with a 78% increase in outstanding debts and an 81% increase in public records related to bankruptcies, evictions, and court decisions. Dobbs v. The Jackson Women`s Health Organization is reviewing the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi law that prohibits women from accessing abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. It is widely expected that this case will determine the fate of Roe v. Both Wade and Mississippi are directly challenging the precedent set by Roe Supreme Court decisions protecting access to abortion from fetal viability (typically between 24 and 28 weeks` gestation). On December 1, 2021, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Dobbs v.

Jackson. In asking the Court to overturn Roe, the State of Mississippi asserts that „there is simply no causal relationship between the availability of abortion and women`s ability to act in society”1 and therefore no reason to believe that access to abortion „has shaped women`s ability to participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation.”2 as the Court had already held. If Roe were overturned, the number of women who have significant barriers to abortion would increase dramatically. Twelve states have enacted „trigger bans” designed to ban abortion immediately after a Roe overthrow, while another 10 are likely to quickly enact new bans.8 These bans would close abortion centers in much of the American South and Midwest, dramatically increasing travel distances and logistical costs of abortion. Economic research predicts what is likely to happen next. Several teams of economists have used natural experiments resulting from mandatory wait times (Joyce and Kaestner, 2001; Lindo and Pineda-Torres, 2021; Myers, 2021) and supplier closures (Quast, Gonzalez, & Ziemba, 2017; Fischer, Royer and White, 2018; Lindo, Myers, Schlosser, & Cunningham, 2020; Venator and Fletcher, 2021; Myers, 2021). All found that increasing travel distances prevent a large number of women seeking abortions from going to a provider and that most of these women give birth accordingly. For example, Lindo and co-authors (2020) use a natural experiment resulting from the sudden closure of half of Texas abortion clinics in 2013 and find that an increase in travel distance from 0 to 100 miles leads to a 25.8% decrease in abortions. Myers, Jones, and Upadhyay (2019) use these findings to envision a post-Roe America, predicting that if Roe is toppled and the expected states begin banning abortion, about 1/3 of women living in the affected areas would not be able to reach an abortion provider, which equates to about 100,000 women in the first year alone. Myers, Caitlin Knowles, 2021. „Cool or overloaded? the impact of mandatory waiting periods on abortions and births.” Institute of Labour Economics IZA No.

14434. Excerpt from www.iza.org/publications/dp/14434/cooling-off-or-burdened-the-effects-of-mandatory-waiting-periods-on-abortions-and-births In 1973, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of abortion in two cases, Roe v.