Once you also factor in travel expenses, including gas, lodging, and food, and the bill becomes nearly insurmountable for someone working, say, a minimum wage job. If a family member or friend isn’t able to babysit, that could be another added cost (if not a total non-starter). That child would not be allowed to accompany the mother into the procedure. Research shows that 60 percent of people who seek abortions have already had at least one child. Then there’s the matter of who will watch the kids who may already be in the home. “It's very common for a boss to say, ‘Well, if you need those two days off, you might as well just not come back,’” Dr. There’s also the prospect of taking time off from work, which could pose issues from both a lost paycheck and job-security perspective.

Katz notes that many low-income pregnant people do not have the resources, like a car, to make the trip. After finding an abortion provider (a hurdle all its own, given that a single facility may serve its own state in addition to several abortion-ban states), there’s the matter of securing transportation for what could amount to a multi-day trip.įor instance, in Houston, where abortion has been banned completely, one of the closest full-service abortion facilities is nearly 800 miles away in Carbondale, Illinois, according to Sheila Katz, PhD, associate professor of sociology at University of Houston and author of the book Reformed American Dreams: Welfare Mothers, Higher Education, and Activism. The notion of traveling for an abortion incurs a number of considerations and financial costs for a pregnant person.

Impact of roe v wade on society