“The march of American history has been towards expanded freedoms for women, but not today,” said Mason. “If news reports are accurate, the Court’s conservative majority is planning to overturn Roe, turning back the clock on basic reproductive freedoms women have enjoyed for nearly half a century. Numerous state legislatures stand ready to ban abortion outright if Roe is overturned, leaving women in those states—especially low-income women and women of color—without access to this most basic of reproductive health services.”
“Women are in the fight of our lives at this moment. The gains we have made towards equality over the last few decades are slipping away on many fronts,” said Mason.
Mason also pointed to recent IWPR research showing that state bans on abortion and other restrictions on women’s reproductive health hurt women and states economically even as they imperil women’s freedom.
“Women in America are justifiably enraged at the possible loss of Roe and the threat it represents to women’s equality. But state abortion bans also have a devastating impact on the financial security of women and their families and state economies as a whole,” continued Mason.
Earlier this year, the Center on the Economics of Reproductive Health (CERH) at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) released game-changing research on reproductive health to calculate the economic cost of reproductive health restrictions on state economies. At the national level, IWPR’s research estimates that state-level abortion restrictions cost state economies $105 billion dollars per year.
“The potential overturn of Roe will inflict enormous damage to women’s equality. But it will also dramatically impact the ability of women to participate fully in the American economy by reducing their labor force participation, cutting into their earnings, and increasing turnover. Add it all up and the impact on women and their families of this dark day in history is potentially devastating,” said Mason.
IWPR’s analysis estimates that, on a national scale, if all state-level abortion restrictions were eliminated:
- An additional 505,000 women aged 15 to 44 would enter the labor force and earn about $3.0 billion dollars annually.
- Currently employed women aged 15 to 44 would gain $101.8 billion in higher earnings annually.
- The income of individual women aged 15 to 44 would be $1,610 higher— with an impact from $0 in Vermont to $2,879 in Nebraska.
- National GDP would be nearly 0.5 percent greater— ranging from zero percent in Vermont to over one percent in Missouri.
