Postpartum Permanent Contraception Increases among Native-Americans and Immigrant Latinas Following Dobbs Abortion Bans

• In Event: Structural Constraints on U.S. Fertility

Abstract

The 2022 Dobbs versus Jackson Women’s Health Supreme Court decision immediately triggered abortion bans in 14 U.S. states. In this context of sharply constrained reproductive-care options, we hypothesize female postpartum sterilization incidence increases specifically among Native-Americans and immigrant Latinas, two marginalized groups with prior experience of coercive sterilization. We use data from the state-representative Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System in a difference-in-difference analysis that estimates magnitudes of change in sterilization incidence in two post-Dobbs quarters in seven abortion-ban states, Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, relative to in abortion-protected states. We estimate 8 and 9 percentage-point relative increases in sterilization incidence in the first post-Dobbs quarter respectively for Native-Americans and immigrant Latinas. This compares to 3 percentage-point relative increases overall in those states. Applying a reproductive-justice framework, we conclude that post-Dobbs increases in sterilization incidence among Native-Americans and immigrant Latinas reproduce historical coerced sterilization patterns.

Authors

• Michael S. Rendall, University of Maryland-College Park

• Mieke C.W. Eeckhaut, University of Delaware