Page 85 - Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality

The restrictions on coverage, which by themselves represent significant and at times insurmountable obstacles for low-income women, are compounded by additional state abortion restrictions . For example, eleven states currently require women to travel to a clinic and receive state-mandated information at least twenty-four, forty-eight, or even seventy-two hours prior to an abortion .30 These two-trip requirements fall especially hard on low-income women who may work multiple jobs; have difficultly arranging time off; cannot afford to lose daily wages; do not have access to reliable transportation; and can ill-afford extra child care expenses .
In addition, states continue to enact regulations targeting abortion providers (“TRAP” laws) that impose medically unnecessary yet onerous regulations that drive up the cost of abortion and reduce the number of providers . Laws that require physicians providing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital near the abortion facility have been enacted in more than half a dozen states in recent years .31 Where they have been allowed to take effect, they have shuttered numerous clinics because hospitals may refuse to grant privileges for reasons having nothing to do with the physician’s qualifications . One recent study in Louisiana analyzed a new law that could close all of the state’s abortion facilities by requiring providers to have hospital admitting privileges, thus forcing 75 percent of Louisiana women to travel 150 miles or more each way for abortion services .32 The researchers noted that forcing Louisiana women to travel further for abortion care would likely add to financial difficulties they already face when trying to pay for or access abortion services .33 Other TRAP schemes require abortion clinics to meet expensive physical plant and staffing requirements that are not imposed on facilities doing comparable procedures, 34 forcing some clinics to close . And when clinics have to close due to these unnecessary requirements, women lose access not only to safe abortions, but also other reproductive health care services including contraceptives .
Not content with making early abortion harder to access, some states have enacted restrictions on later abortions .35 Since 2010, 13 states have passed unconstitutional laws banning abortion at 20 weeks,36 further punishing women who were delayed by a need to raise funds to pay for an abortion and/or couldn’t navigate existing legislative and geographic barriers to care . While each of these restrictions imposes burdens that fall especially hard on low-income women, their cumulative impact puts abortion effectively out of reach for some women . For a woman struggling to manage two trips to an abortion provider and facing additional travel distances because TRAP laws have reduced the number of providers and increased the costs of procedures at those clinics that
30 Counseling and Waiting Periods for Abortion, guTTmacher insTiTuTe 2 (May 1, 2015), http://www.guttmacher.org/ statecenter/spibs/spib_MWPA.pdf.
31 State Policies in Brief: Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, guTTmacher insTiTuTe 1 (May 1, 2015), http://www. guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_TRAP.pdf.
32 Liza Fuentes, Implications for Women of Louisiana’s Law Requiring Abortion Providers to Have Hospital Admitting Privileges, iBis reproducTive healTh 4 (Feb. 2015), http://www.researchgate.net/publication/273154856_ Implications_for_women_of_Louisianas_law_requiring_abortion_providers_to_have_hospital_admitting_privileges.
33 Id.
34 Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP), cenTer for reproducTive righTs (Mar. 5, 2009), http://www.
reproductiverights.org/project/targeted-regulation-of-abortion-providers-trap.
35 State Policies on Later Abortion, guTTmacher insTiTuTe 2 (May 1, 2015), http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/ spibs/spib_PLTA.pdf.
36 Those states include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas. Abortion Bans Throughout Pregnancy, naral pro-choice america, http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/what-is-choice/fast-facts/abortion-bans-after-12-weeks.html (last visited May 29, 2015).
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