Scholars find that travel distance to abortion facilities resulting from new laws increases rates of violence.
President Donald J. Trump’s recently enacted megalaw relies on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, illustrating the continued impact of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. Another continued impact is the influence of Dobbs on the amount of violence women experience from their partners.
In a working paper, Dhaval M. Dave, a research associate at Bentley University, and several coauthors report research finding “the first causal evidence” of the impact of post-Dobbs abortion restrictions on rates of intimate partner violence. They find that these restrictions resulted in over ten thousand additional violent incidents.
Dobbs triggered abortion bans in 14 states and additional restrictions in other states. After Dobbs, the distance from where people live to abortion facilities grew, with the average national travel distance increasing from about 65 miles to about 123 miles.
The researchers use data on travel distance to gauge the effect of post-Dobbs abortion restrictions, theorizing that these restrictions have reduced the number of providers and, in turn, increased distances to abortion-care facilities.
To investigate the impact on intimate partner violence, they compare rates of violent incidents in counties across the United States where travel distance to an abortion facility increased with counties where it did not. They control for measures including age, race, rurality, and state-level policy changes.
For rates of intimate partner violence, they rely on data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System between 2017 and 2023. This reporting system provides data on incidents of partner violence reported by reproductive-aged females and demographic information about both the victim and the perpetrator.
For data on travel distance, the researchers rely on a nationwide dataset of distances to the nearest abortion facility by county. The dataset tracks changes in all abortion facilities in the United States since 2009, but the researchers limit their dataset to information from 2017 to 2023.
They find a causal connection between the increase in incidents of intimate partner violence and increased travel distance to an abortion provider. A 100-mile increase in travel distance resulted in an uptick in intimate partner violence by “4.2 incidents per 10,000 reproductive age women per half year,” they find.
The researchers break down the study’s results by type of violent incident and several demographic factors. They find that an increase in travel distance increased violent incidents that involved an injury and those that led to the arrest of the perpetrator. The impact was greater, however, on incidents involving a simple assault compared to an aggravated assault or instance of sexual violence.
As for demographics, they find that the increase in travel distance affected rates of intimate partner violence in women of all ages but impacted women between the ages of 25 to 34 the most. Increased distance most affected non-Hispanic Black women. Rates of violent incidents were consistent across rural, urban, and suburban areas, but the researchers speculate that the impact in rural areas could be more “chronic and severe” due to higher rates of unemployment and substance use.
The researchers also consider the Texas Heartbeat Act, which limited abortion access in Texas almost a year before Dobbs. They look at the difference in rates of intimate partner violence before and after the law’s enactment, finding a significant increase even before Dobbs.
At the same time, the researchers note several limitations. First, the intimate partner violence database on which they rely does not include socioeconomic information and is not representative of the entire United States since just under 80 percent of U.S. law enforcement agencies share data. Second, the database only includes incidents reported to the police and so is likely an underestimate. Finally, using distance to an abortion facility to determine abortion access may ignore the influence of other barriers, such as financial or interpersonal issues, and the ability to obtain medication abortion by mail.
Despite these limitations, the researchers still find that abortion restrictions increase the risk of intimate partner violence for women of reproductive age. They conclude by emphasizing that their findings should help state and national policy makers in design health policies and lessen the financial impact of intimate partner violence on victims and society.