I have begun a new research project, called “Abortion on the Move: Navigating the Fractured Reproductive Healthcare Landscape,” which explores how race, class, and nationality shape abortion access in the post-Dobbs era in the United States.

The abortion restrictions and bans that were inaugurated by the Dobbs supreme court decision have disproportionately impacted lower-income and racially marginalized women, who are both most likely to seek out abortions and face the greatest structural barriers to access. Due to policy restrictions since Dobbs, pregnant people are using abortion funds to finance and logistically coordinate out of state travel for clinical abortions or they are managing their own abortion at home through medical abortions provided by community networks. What are the barriers and pathways to care that pregnant people from racially, legally, and socioeconomically marginalized communities experience when traveling out-of-state to access abortions, when using abortion funds, or when using community networks to manage medication abortions at home in the post-Dobbs era? In partnership with Midwest Access Coalition and a prominent community network, this project employs a comparative, qualitative design to determine the multiple structural, meso-level and embodied/emotional barriers that may impede abortion access, as well as mechanisms of support that may facilitate pathways to care. This research compares the experiences of lower-income and racially marginalized pregnant people to those from more privileged backgrounds, and also compares the experience of using an abortion fund versus more informal means of accessing medication abortion. The qualitative nature of this project will enable precise identification of barriers that may arise at different stages of the abortion process in the post-Dobbs era.