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Abortion Bans Cost the Country $140 Billion
Abortion, Every Day
By Kylie Cheung
Speaking of how much abortion bans and restrictions cost the country: a new report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research shows that abortion bans could be costing the U.S. economy an annual average of $140 billion. This makes sense: abortion bans cost women their jobs, or push them into debt to afford pregnancy-related health care costs, child care, and so much more. State-by-state, banned states like Alabama could be losing as much as $3 billion annually.
Past studies have shown large swaths of the labor force won’t work in states that ban abortion, residents of banned states are moving away in droves, rental prices are going down in anti-abortion states while vacancies go up, and prospective college students aren’t even applying to college in abortion-banned states. Another 2025 study showed banned states are losing over $130 billion annually. From Melissa Holly Mahoney at IWPR:
“Abortion bans are a drag on the economy by impacting women’s choices about their careers. When women are unable to make choices about when, or if, to start a family, they are less willing to change jobs, to take time out from employment for education or skills-training, which could then lead to higher-paying jobs.”
More news on the costs of anti-abortion extremism: USAID has reportedly spent more than $360,000 storing unusable contraceptives at an overseas warehouse, after the Trump administration decided not to distribute the contraceptives to foreign countries in need. The State Department erroneously referred to the contraceptives, once worth $9.7 million, as ‘abortifacients’ last year—an obvious move to further restrict birth control.