Study shows abortion bans lead to higher rates of relationship violence

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 A new study finds that there’s an increase in intimate partner violence in parts of the country with a near-total ban on abortion.

The study, published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, only echoes what abortion rights advocates say they would expect. 

The study found that abortion restrictions increased the rate of intimate partner violence by about 7 to 10 percent.

And Bilge Erten, economics professor at Northeastern University and co-author of the study, says things are particularly bad for women who are low-income and less educated. 

“For more vulnerable women, we see a particularly stark increase in their risk of experiencing both physical, sexual, and intimate partner violence,” Erten told WMNF.

Reasons can include the financial strain of having to travel for abortion, as well as restrictions tying women with abusive partners.

She says abortion restrictions can lead to reproductive coercion, where an abusive partner would restrict contraceptive access or threaten to report a woman for trying to receive those services. 

“That not only reduces a woman’s future potential, their ability to time when they want to have their child, or whether they want to have a child with this partner, but it can also trap them potentially in a very risky, vulnerable situation,” Erten said.

The study only confirms what Kira-Lynn Ferderber, outreach educator at Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, has seen. 

“Every rapist in Florida, every wife beater in Florida is hoping that these bans stay, that the bans spread, that they continue, that they become more and more extreme,” Ferderber said.

Although data for Florida was not included in the study, the state has a six-week abortion ban many have described as extreme.