A new Ohio law requires fetal remains from an abortion to be cremated or buried—a medical impossibility in many cases, since an early abortion produces no body. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court just ruled that requiring patients to pick up an abortion pill in person is fine, in spite of the risk of contracting a deadly virus during a worldwide pandemic. A study just published in JAMA finds that these and other restrictive abortion laws increase the risk that people will try to manage their own abortions.
The Link Between Abortion Restrictions and Self-Managed Abortions
The study, which used a cross-sectional survey model, included a panel of 7,022 self-identified women between the ages of 18 and 49 years old. Researchers asked them a single one-time question: “Have you ever taken or used something on your own, without medical assistance, to try to end an unwanted pregnancy?”
The survey found that about 7% of American women will attempt to self-induce an abortion at least once during their lifetime. Among low-income women and women of color, the rate is higher.
Eleven percent of women who attempted to self-abort reported at least one medical complication.
Forty-nine percent reported using medication, with 38.4% using herbs, and 19.8% using physical methods. More than 47% said they self-induced an abortion because it was faster or easier, while 25.2% reported that abortion was too expensive.
More than a quarter (27.8%) of respondents said their self-induced abortions were successful, with a third (33.6%) saying they later sought an abortion at a clinic. The remainder had a miscarriage (11.4%), continued the pregnancy (13.4%), or were uncertain (13.3%).
Other Effects of Abortion Restrictions
The new study is part of a growing avalanche of research showing that the only predictable effect of abortion regulations is to harm the people who most need abortions—and often their children and partners, too. Consider these recent findings:
Abortion bans don’t work. And they harm women and families on virtually every measure of health, from increasing domestic violence and poverty to driving a skyrocketing maternal mortality rate ever higher. Access to abortion even improves men’s socioeconomic status.
It should come as no surprise that restricting a vital women’s health service drives it underground rather than ending it. Indeed, that’s probably the point. The far right has never cared about life after birth, especially not if that life happens to be a pregnant person.