Cost Should Never Be a Barrier to Abortion Care
October 5, 2022 | Reproductive Equity Now
No one should ever be turned away from accessing abortion care because they cannot afford it.
The Cost Barrier to Abortion
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June, the cost of accessing abortion nationwide is rising, exponentially. People looking for abortion care are left footing an enormous bill.
Today, abortion is now completely banned in 14 U.S. states while severely restricted in many others. Check back tomorrow and that number is likely to have changed. The result: Patients are being forced to wait weeks for appointments, even in states where care is protected. At a clinic in Illinois, wait times for an abortion appointment increased from two or three days to two or three weeks as an influx of out-of-state patients began to seek care after Roe fell.
The problem: the longer people are forced to wait for abortion care, the more invasive and expensive the procedure becomes. On average, first trimester abortion care costs around $500, while second trimester care can costs skyrocket to around $2,000.
It’s a fact that abortion bans do not stop abortion. Historically, we’ve seen that people will travel to access care wherever they have support networks, can get an appointment, can access a direct flight, or feel safe receiving care. After SB8, a 2021 Texas law banning abortion at 6 weeks even before the fall of Roe, 1,400 people traveled out of state for an abortion each month.
As more abortion bans are implemented across the country, more people will travel across state lines to access life-saving care.
Roadblocks in Traveling to Access Care:
Traveling to access abortion care is difficult — and it’s only getting worse. Flight prices, hotel costs, child care, and time off work, all take a serious toll on patient’s wallets, leaving many people, especially those experiencing poverty, in difficult, if not impossible, predicaments.
On Sept. 28, 2022, The New York Times reported that a patient traveling from rural Missouri to Chicago for care spent $1,808 on travel and accommodations alone. For someone making Missouri’s average salary of $55,000 a year, that’s more than two full weeks of pay after taxes. Unfortunately, we’re seeing that the farther people travel, the more expensive those costs become.
These exorbitant travel costs are simply not realistic for low-income people living in states with hostile bans. Low-income people, who can’t afford to travel for care, are being forced to carry their unintended pregnancies to term, effectively making high costs a barrier to reproductive freedom.
These pregnancies are at the greatest risk, too, as states with hostile bans typically have the highest rates of economic inequality and the worst maternal health outcomes in the country. We know that these restrictive abortion bans disproportionately impact people of color, who already die from pregnancy-related causes at far higher rates than white women.
This is a grave economic, health care, and racial justice crisis.
How Reproductive Equity Now is Making an Impact in Massachusetts:
In Massachusetts, Reproductive Equity Now is doing everything we can to ensure that cost is never a barrier to abortion care. We believe that the amount of money in your bank account should never impact your ability to determine your future or to receive important health care.
In the latest abortion access law that we passed in July, Repro Equity Now fought to include a requirement that Massachusetts-based health insurance plans must cover abortion and abortion-related care with no cost sharing. This is a huge step to ensure care is affordable and accessible to everyone in Massachusetts.
We know there’s more to affording care than just the procedure. That’s why Repro Equity Now fought to include $2 million in the state budget for Massachusetts abortion funds, marking the first time in history that the Commonwealth has appropriated money to help people pay for abortion care.
Abortion funds are the on-the-ground organizations doing the heroic work of distributing financial assistance to people accessing abortion care in our state. These funds can be used to cover travel, hotel, and childcare accommodations, in addition to the procedure itself. In Massachusetts, we are lucky to have four incredible abortion funds working to make abortion care more affordable and accessible: Jane Fund of Central Massachusetts, Abortion Fund of Western Massachusetts, Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund, and Tides for Reproductive Change.
What You Can Do
If you are looking for ways to support abortion access, donate to your local abortion fund! Your donation will have a direct impact on people’s abortion care and their ability to control their lives and futures. Visit the National Network of Abortion Fund’s website to find your local abortion funds.
What Comes Next
While Massachusetts has taken important strides to break down barriers to care, we have much more work to do to ensure the full spectrum of reproductive health care is accessible and affordable for every person across Massachusetts. We are working to pass a law that would require health insurance plans to cover all pregnancy care–including abortion care, miscarriage management, prenatal care, childbirth, and postpartum care–without any kind of cost-sharing.
Pregnancy is uniquely important to all of us, and inevitably impacts us all in one way or another. We must reimagine our healthcare system to center and support the needs of women, pregnant people, and families. We should be the ones dictating our care, not our deductibles or insurance plans.
We won’t stop fighting until cost is no longer a barrier to people getting the care they need—at any stage in pregnancy.
