Travel time after Dobbs spiked in states that curbed abortion access, with Arizona seeing surge from Texas
Abortion rights activists and opponents face off at the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24, 2024. (File photo by Morgan Kubasko/Cronkite News)
WASHINGTON – In 14 states that made abortion all but impossible to obtain after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, women seeking to end a pregnancy had to drive four times further on average – 11.3 hours, up from 2.8 hours.
“People are spending a lot of time in their cars,” said Diana Greene Foster, a demographer and professor at the University of California San Francisco. “They take more time off work, they spend more money and it takes them longer in pregnancy to get their abortion.”
Foster co-authored a recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health that studied impacts of the June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Arizona had a 15-week ban in place for most of the last three years. Last November, Arizona voters overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment enshrining abortion rights through fetal viability – around 24 weeks.
There were roughly 16,800 abortions performed in Arizona in 2024 – 2,900 more than the previous year, according to an April report from the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive rights.
About 1% of those 2024 abortions involved out of state patients – 160 women, all from Texas.
The number of abortions also rose in five other states since Dobbs allowed states to tighten access.
Nearly all U.S. abortions are performed before the 15-week mark.
The study on travel times for abortion patients covered two years following the Dobbs ruling and included the 14 states with total or near-total bans during that time: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Some of those states banned abortion outright. Others banned the procedure at six weeks, dated to the start of the last menstrual period – so early that many women don’t yet realize they are pregnant.
Two of those states no longer have such bans.
Missouri voters approved a ballot measure last November enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution. On July 2, the Wisconsin Supreme Court – with a new Democratic majority – reversed a previous ruling that had allowed enforcement of an 1849 ban to resume after Dobbs.
Four states not included in the study currently have total or six-week bans, according to Guttmacher: Florida, Georgia, Iowa and South Carolina.
“Most of our patients are Arizonans,” said Dr. Gabrielle Goodrick, the owner and medical director of Camelback Family Planning in Phoenix. “Most of the patients go to adjacent states.”
But, she said, her practice sees up to a dozen patients per month from out of state.
Arizona voters approved Proposition 139 on Nov. 5, 2024. The measure codified abortion rights through fetal viability in the state constitution. (File photo by Brendon Pricco/Cronkite News)
Some come from as far as Florida (six-week ban), Tennessee and Louisiana (total ban). She also sees patients from Colorado, which has no limit, and California, which allows abortion through viability.
“People who want an abortion would much rather get it from a provider in their state than have to travel tens of hours to go to another state,” Foster said.
Sarah Zagorski, senior director of public relations and communications at Americans United for Life, said the Arizona ballot measure represented a setback for the anti-abortion movement after the huge victory with Dobbs.
“Enshrining abortion under the constitution was a devastating blow,” she said.
Eloise Lopez, executive director at Pro-Choice Arizona, said bans and other legal obstacles don’t change the fact that some women still need that option due to their financial situation, health, housing instability or ability to care for kids they already have.
“The biggest thing to remember is somebody who is not wanting to carry a pregnancy is going to find whatever way that they can to make that a reality for them,” she said.
Access to abortion in Arizona has gone through significant changes in the last three years.
Three months before the Dobbs decision in June 2022, Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, signed a “trigger law” that would ban abortion at 15 weeks if the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
That ban was in effect nearly the entire time between Dobbs and last November.
For two weeks in September and October 2022, a court allowed enforcement of a near-total ban adopted in 1864, before statehood. Appeals courts ultimately struck down that Civil War-era law and the Legislature formally repealed it.
The new governor, Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, signed that repeal.
She also issued an executive order in 2023 prohibiting assistance with investigations by other states involving reproductive and gender-affirming care that is legal in Arizona.
“It’s been a roller coaster,” said Dr. Janelle Lee, a family medicine physician at Gila Valley Clinic and a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health.