A new report from University of California San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) released today shows how health care providers are still unable to provide standard medical care in states with abortion bans more than two years after the fall of Roe. This has led to delays, denials of care, and worsened health outcomes, along with an increased financial and emotional toll on patients. These findings, which build on a preliminary report published in May 2023, suggest that abortion bans are fundamentally eroding health care for pregnant people and those who may be pregnant in the future.
The report findings suggest that, rather than increasing clarity and identifying workarounds over time to provide evidence-based care, abortion bans have fundamentally altered how pregnancy-related care—and even other medical care for people with the capacity for pregnancy—is delivered. The report paints a stark picture of how abortion bans are shifting the way clinical care is provided for the worse.
Dr. Kari White, executive and scientific director of Resound Research, contributed as a co-author on the report. “This study shows that abortion bans are fundamentally degrading medical care – not just in a single state or for a certain type of patient but for people with a range of health conditions living anywhere these bans are in place. That a high proportion of patients described in the study narratives are Black and Latinx makes this even more concerning given the long-standing structural barriers to high quality care that these groups encounter in the US medical system,” said Dr. White.
