Abortion restrictions and intimate partner violence in the Dobbs Era

Abstract

In overturning Roe v. Wade and triggering laws in many states that ban or severely restrict abortion, the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 Dobbs decision dramatically altered the landscape of reproductive health in the U.S. Prior research has highlighted the far-reaching impact of abortion restrictions for women and families, which extend beyond their proximate effects on abortions, births, and fertility. We provide some of the first causal evidence on how abortion restrictions in the post-Dobbs era have impacted women’s risk of exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV is the most common form of violence experienced by women, and changes in access to abortion may generate unintended effects on various inputs (economic resources, stress, intra-household bargaining) that could affect relationship dynamics and raise the risk of IPV. Leveraging information on IPV incidents reported to law enforcement from 2017–2023 combined with post-Dobbs changes in county-level travel distance to abortion facilities, analyses are based on a generalized difference-in-differences approach. We find that abortion restrictions – alternately measured by the increase in travel distance and by the pres- ence of a near-total ban – significantly increased the rate of IPV for reproductive-age women in treated counties by about seven to 10 percent. These estimates imply at least 9000 additional incidents of IPV among women in the treated “trigger ban” states, which is predicted to add over $1.24 billion in social costs.