An abortion costs as much as $1,400 more now that Roe v. Wade is history

It's more challenging to get an abortion a year after the Supreme Court ended the Constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. It's also more expensive.

The average cost to complete the procedure is now as much as $1,400 higher, according to one estimate from a national organization that helps cover these expenses.

That is largely because women are paying more to travel if they live in states where abortion is now limited or effectively banned.

"As people are traveling farther and farther for care because of abortion limitations, we are seeing increased rates for accessing care, whether that's for lodging, renting a car — or while you're traveling, having to pay for care for children at home," Danika Severino-Wynn, vice president of abortion access for Planned Parenthood FA, told Yahoo Finance.

Those costs started jumping last June when the US Supreme Court held in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that Mississippi could legally ban abortion after 15 weeks.

The decision overturned 50 years of legal precedent, first established by the court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, that secured a federal right to abortion.

It also handed over regulatory authority to the states, more than half of which have since outlawed or restricted abortion.

In the nine months following the decision, abortions rose on average in states where the procedure was legal while falling across the country, according to a study by #WeCount, suggesting that women traveled to get the procedure.

Some employers have committed to doing more to help employees access reproductive care. In the days and weeks following the Dobbs ruling, 138 companies said they would cover certain travel costs and other reproductive benefits for workers who could not access abortion near their homes.

They included Airbnb (ABNB), Amazon (AMZN), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Starbucks (SBUX) and Walt Disney (DIS), according to Yale School of Management's Chief Executive Leadership Institute.

Traveling from Hawaii to Maryland

Serra Sippel, interim executive director for the national abortion support organization Brigid Alliance, is seeing indirect costs from abortions rise firsthand.

Her organization helps women cover the various expenses of long-distance travel, including airfare, car rental and repairs, gasoline, hotels, food, medication and child care.

"On average, our clients travel over 1,300 miles at a cost of more than $1,400," Sippel said. "That’s round trip, and does not include the cost of the procedure."

Airfare, she said, averages $800. Child care is $300, hotel is $225, local transportation is $100 and food is $75.

One of Brigid’s clients, Sipple said, traveled 4,822 miles from Hawaii to Maryland to access abortion care following the Dobbs ruling.

Among some of the most challenging new financial setbacks for women who must now travel to access abortion are lost wages and child care, said Severino-Wynn, citing data showing that 75% of women who obtain abortions are considered low income.

"And we know that most people seeking abortion have children already," she said. "Also challenging are things like missing out on wages if you are working in a job where you don’t have paid time off. So compounding costs definitely are increasing."

Medical costs

Direct medical costs of an abortion — such as consults, exams, laboratory tests, surgery or medication — haven’t changed significantly since the high court’s decision.

But they do vary across states that still offer the procedure. They depend on the type of abortion sought – medical versus surgical — and gestational age, Severino-Wynn said.

Other variables are based on whether or not a patient has private insurance or Medicaid, and whether or not in a particular state those insurers are required to cover abortion.

On average, Severino-Wynn said the cost for a first trimester medication abortion from one of Planned Parenthood’s 49 US clinics is $580 and can cost up to $800.

In-clinic, or surgical, first trimester abortion costs between $300 to $1,500. A second trimester abortion, she said, can range from $750 to $2,000.

Looking for help

Baltimore resident Patricia Watson, a mother of two who terminated a pregnancy in 2008 after the birth of her first child, said women who can't afford the added costs associated with an abortion are looking for financial help online.

In response to a post on Facebook, Watson connected with a 27-year-old single mother from Florida who she agreed to let stay at her home in May.

"I watched her children," said Watson, who at the time of her abortion made $30,000 a year working for Maryland's state government.

"She had to rent a car, pay for food on the road, and take off from work," Watson said about the Florida woman. "Luckily she needed no daycare, but did need to pay for gas, and more insurance because she needed more liability insurance to drive the rental car."

Sipple, from Brigid Alliance, described the current need for that type of financial assistance as "unlimited."

Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on Twitter @alexiskweed.

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