Study Looks at the Impact of No Abortions Performed in Wisconsin After Roe v. Wade Ruling

Wednesday, January 3rd, 2024 -- 2:00 PM

(Bridgit Bowden, Wisconsin Public Radio) -When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its historic June 2022 Dobbs opinion, all abortion providers in Wisconsin immediately stopped providing the service, citing fears that they could be charged with felonies under a state law first written in 1849 that still remains on the books. 

According to Bridgit Bowden with Wisconsin Public Radio, for more than a year after, virtually no legal abortions took place in Wisconsin. Now, data is beginning to show how that affected birth rates.

Using provisional data from the first half of 2023, a new study from the IZA Institute of Labor Economics estimates that births in Wisconsin went up by about 2.5 percent. It estimates that 1,503 more babies were born in Wisconsin as a direct result of the Dobbs decision and the halting of abortion services in the state.

Caitlin Myers is an economics professor at Middlebury College, and one of the study's authors. She said while that number may seem small relative to the total number of babies born each year, it represents a big change.

"That number suggests that about 1 in 5 people in Wisconsin who wanted an abortion and would have obtained one if Wisconsin's facilities had remained open were not able to obtain an abortion because they closed," she said. 

The study also found that the average Wisconsin woman faced an increase in driving distance of about 44 miles to the nearest abortion facility. But in some areas of the state, not much changed, Myers said.

Pre-Dobbs, there were four abortion clinics in the state, located in Milwaukee, Madison and Sheboygan. "There are places in Wisconsin, where populations are still plenty far enough away from abortion facilities, mostly in Michigan and Minnesota, that they're still just going to be trapped," she said.

The study was conducted using provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Official birth count data from the first year post-Dobbs are expected to be reported in 2024, but Myers does not expect any changes that would alter the study's findings significantly.

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