Abortion bans and restrictions are costing $133B/yr and counting

Obviously some will quibble about the precise figures and about how much can really be attributed to the effects of Dobbs. But that there is a big economic cost is beyond any legitimate dispute.

A new analysis by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), a DC-based think tank, estimates that the 16 states with total or near-total abortion bans have sustained more than $64 billion in economic losses annually since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022. That’s enough to cover the average estimated health care costs related to pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period for nearly all of the 3.6 million births that occurred in the US last year, the IWPR fact sheet says.

Nationwide, the Dobbs decision that overruled Roe has led to a staggering $133 billion in economic losses each year, IWPR estimates. Beyond the 16 state bans, the loss of federal protections that Roe offered, plus restrictions in other states that reduce abortion access—such as mandatory pre-abortion counseling and waiting periods, restrictions on providers, and gestational limits—have had an enormous economic toll, the think tank says. The restrictions keep more than a half million women out of the labor force each year, with Black women and Latinas suffering the greatest impacts, according to IWPR’s analysis.

This is not the first indication that Dobbs has shrunken the workforce and stunted the economy. Recent research from both IWPR and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), for example, shows that young, highly educated people are moving out of states with abortion bans. And another recent NBER paper found that abortion restrictions increased rates of intimate partner violence by 7 to 10 percent, contributing to a projected increase of $1.24 billion in social costs, including health care and lost productivity for victims. But the new IWPR fact sheet provides some of the timeliest analysis of the economic impacts of Dobbs, and helps quantify the overall costs of rising abortion restrictions nationwide. “This is not just a women’s crisis, it’s really a national economic crisis of significant magnitude,” says Melissa Mahoney, senior research economist at IWPR and lead author of the report. - Mother Jones

Many states can amend to protect reproductive rights

Minnesota is one of them. Obviously you have to click for the referenced map and spreadsheet.

Voters in California, Michigan, and Vermont resoundingly approved amendments to their state constitutions last year that now guarantee the right to an abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Many more states can—and should—follow suit.

Two states, New York and Maryland, in fact, have already placed similar amendments on the ballot, but another 21 could do the same thing, as illustrated in the map at the top of this post and in this companion spreadsheet. Together, these 26 states would cover 58% of the nation’s population—a critical step in the battle to restore abortion rights for the entire nation. - Daily Kos

Companies are already selling info on who's pregnant

As if surveillance capitalism wasn't bad enough before.

And thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision to overthrow Roe v. Wade, a good chunk of the nation’s police and private citizens can go after people seeking abortions and the doctors that would serve them if there’s enough evidence.

And in 2022, there is plenty of data to go around and plenty of players willing to pawn it off if the price is right. A Gizmodo investigation into some of the nation’s biggest data brokers found more than two dozen promoting access to datasets containing digital information on millions of pregnant and potentially pregnant people across the country. At least one of those companies also offered a large catalogue of people who were using the same sorts of birth control that’s being targeted by more restrictive states right now.

In total, Gizmodo identified 32 different brokers across the U.S. selling access to the unique mobile IDs from some 2.9 billion profiles of people pegged as “actively pregnant” or “shopping for maternity products.” Also on the market: data on 478 million customer profiles labeled “interested in pregnancy” or “intending to become pregnant.” You can see the full list of companies for yourself here. - Gizmodo

Big corporations are predictably mum on abortion rights

We may see some change on this, but probably not much.

In the days since a Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade leaked, corporate America has offered a familiar response: silence.

It mirrors the days following Texas’ implementation of its six-week abortion ban last September — silence from the many companies in the state. But in the weeks after Texas’ ban went into effect, some companies started to speak publicly and implement policies to assist employees who wanted to get an abortion out of state. That response to the Texas law, then the most restrictive abortion ban in the country, created a precedent that corporations could draw on now that it seems imminent that Roe will be overturned. So far, they have not. - AlterNet

MN lege: Reproductive rights, so far

Emboldened by Traitor Trump and his Supreme Court picks, forced-birth zealots in state legislatures everywhere are running amok, especially with bans after 20 or even 6 weeks. And of course Party of Trump legislators in Minnesota have to be part of the action.

A Minnesota Senate panel on (March 14) voted to outlaw abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, paving the way for the proposal to advance in the Legislature.

The bill would ban abortions on women who are past 20 weeks in their pregnancy except in cases of possible death or serious physical harm. Risk of substantial and irreversible psychological or emotional conditions would not be included...

House Speaker Melissa Hortman said the issue would be a top campaign point in 2020 and predicted that Democrats would flip nine Senate seats currently held by Republicans.

“There are some members of the Minnesota Senate who are out of touch with their constituents on this issue,” Hortman said. - Pioneer Press

To say the least. And even if something like this somehow got through the House, it won’t get through Gov. Tim Walz, who has been consistently good on this issue. But grandstanding attacks on women making their own decisions are considered a political necessity for just about any elected Republican, and so time and effort have to be wasted, every session.

SCOTUS stuns forced-birth zealots

This doesn’t guarantee anything in the longer term. All they did was grant a stay. But the news could have been a lot worse.

This probably is another indication, though, that Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t intend for “his” court to go down as a thundering bastion of radical-right extremism, which wouldn’t look good in the history books. Not to mention which could produce huge electoral backlashes, amplifying those already created by the ultimate embodiment of “movement conservatism,” namely, putting a massively narcissistic and delusional, corrupt beyond description, treasonous, and most of all just an absolute god-damned fucking pitiful idiot in the White House.

In June 2016, an eight-member Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that required doctors who perform abortions to have the authority to admit patients at a local hospital. The makeup of the court has changed significantly since then: In 2017, Justice Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died a few weeks before the Texas case was argued, and Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018 and was replaced by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. But although the court by most measures has become more conservative, the justices (yesterday) granted a request from abortion providers to block a similar Louisiana law from going into effect while the providers appeal a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in a dispute that some court-watchers regarded as a bellwether for the court’s possible direction in future abortion cases. - SCOTUSblog