Where Are All the Abortion Providers? Policy Implementation & Abortion Markets

• In Event: Poster Session: LGBTQI+ Power and Politics & Human Rights
  In Poster Session: Celebrating Fifty Years of Queer Scholarship at APSA Mini-Conference: Poster Session: LGBTQI+ Power and Politics

Abstract

Abortion governance reflects a society’s moral and social priorities and operationalizes them through both democratic and market institutions. In countries that recognize a right to abortion, the implementation of the moral position is complicated by the fact that generally, the state relies on private individuals or companies to actually offer the abortion services. The right to choose abortion can therefore be undercut by market forces and social pressures. Policy implementation decisions can appear technical or bureaucratic, but when they systematically result in the abrogation of a democratically-supported right, they are also political.

In this paper, I quantitatively analyze a new dataset of abortion providers’ locations in several European countries. I seek to understand how political, economic, and social variables affect the density of abortion providers working in a region. Without providers, no abortion policy can be effectively administered. I expect that abortion providers’ choice to work in abortion care in a certain region is affected by such variables as the history of government control by culturally progressive parties (or lack thereof), the way that abortion providers are compensated for their work, public opinion on cultural issues, the prevalence of Protestantism vs. Catholicism in the population.

While previous studies have asked such questions in the United States, I test these expectations across several European countries, introducing a new dataset of abortion providers that allows for comparative analysis. By calculating the abortion provider density per population of reproductive age, I provide a new key variable that is necessary for explaining the pattern of disparities in levels of abortion access.

Author

• Danielle Pullan, University of Cologne