What Our 6-Year Research about Travel Across Borders for Abortion Care Tells Us: It’s Not a Solution

The US Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision reversing the right to abortion is devastating for women and pregnant people, and alarming for scholars and activists who research reproductive rights and justice. We are cultural and medical anthropologists and, since 2016, we have been conducting extensive interdisciplinary research in Europe, funded by the European Research Council (ERC), exploring the experiences of hundreds of women who traveled across national and international borders to seek abortions. We urge cultural, medical, and public anthropologists to expand research about how women and pregnant people experience the new reality of abortion access in the United States, and to translate such research into information that is usable by policymakers and advocacy organizations.