Introduction
The H.R.3755 – Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021 bill attempts to protect women’s reproductive health by letting U.S. women freely determine whether to continue or end pregnancy via abortion. The issue of abortion-specific restrictions is common in the United States. According to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2021), 629,898 abortions were reported in 2019. The need for abortion is in high demand — in 2019, the abortion rate reached 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women, or 195 abortions per 1,000 live births (CDC, 2021). As such, the bill aims to protect women in need of abortion who cannot receive the necessary services due to legal restrictions.
The current situation with abortion legislation leaves women vulnerable from several perspectives. Most importantly, restrictions result in a direct threat to pregnant women’s health. According to Vilda et al. (2021), states with a higher number of restrictive policies had a 7% increase in total maternal mortality (TMM). Restrictions related to physician licensing were particularly dangerous, leading to a 51% increase in TMM (Vilda et al., 2021). Furthermore, the denial of abortion resulted in economic hardships for women whose families could not support an increase in household size (Foster et al., 2022). Given these considerations, the Congress members pleaded for universal access to abortion services in the United States.
Impact
Impact on National Economy
Abortion-restricting policies have been associated with several harmful consequences for the national economy. Firstly, state-level restrictions prevent approximately 505,000 women aged 15-44 from entering the workforce annually. As a result, the U.S. economy loses over $3 billion per year (Institute for Women’s Policy Research [IWPR], 2021). Secondly, already-employed women would earn $101,8 billion if all abortion restrictions were eliminated (IWPR, 2021). Consequently, the country could collect more taxes if U.S. women had equal access to abortion care.
Impact on Healthcare System
Restricted access to abortion may increase the number of desperate women looking for illegal abortion services. Guendelman et al. (2020) found that states with abortion-restricting policies and unsupported access to contraception had significantly higher search traffic for abortion. According to Guendelman et al. (2020), states with abortion-restricting policies tend to spend less on supporting women’s and children’s health. In this regard, restrictions on abortion care create a potentially dangerous vacuum of services, which could likely result in worse health outcomes for women.
Ethics
From an ethical perspective, the abortion-restricting policies seemingly contradict the concept of fundamental human rights. The H.R.3755 – Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021 highlights this problem, pointing out that United Nations human rights treaty bodies condemn medically unnecessary barriers to abortion services (Congress.gov, 2021). Therefore, one can consider the restriction of legal abortion care services a violation of human rights, a type of discrimination aimed against lower-income women in certain U.S. states.
Policy Recommendation
The H.R.3755 – Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021 aims to eliminate discrimination against U.S. women by lifting the current state restrictions via a federal-level law. In particular, the bill proposes removing medically unnecessary restrictions, such as the requirement to make extra in-person visits for the patient or a limitation to prescribe certain drugs for the provider (Congress.gov, 2021). This proposal aligns with the conclusions by Vilda et al. (2021), who found that state-imposed requirements for abortion care providers directly contribute to increased maternal mortality. In addition, the bill would bridge the gap stemming from socioeconomic disparity, making legal abortion services affordable to women unable to support the household size increase.
Criteria for Evaluation
Effectiveness
From the immediate and short-term perspectives, the bill would help achieve economic benefits for U.S. women. In particular, U.S. women aged 15-44 would be able to join the workforce or work without lengthy interruptions, which would positively affect their well-being (IWPR, 2021). From a long-term perspective, the strategy of medically unnecessary restrictions removal would likely contribute to improvement in women’s reproductive and overall health.
Efficiency
The strategies proposed in the bill are efficient since they offer a way to bring benefit to the U.S. budget. According to IWPR (2021), U.S. women would earn an additional $101,8 billion per year if abortion-restricting policies were eliminated. This additional source of income could be taxed, thus making the bill efficient from an economic perspective.
Equity
The bill specifically aims to bridge the gaps stemming from socioeconomic disparities. According to Congess.gov (2021), access to equitable reproductive healthcare has always been deficient for women from ethnic minorities. This claim is supported by the CDC (2021), as the abortion rate was 3.6 times higher in Black and 1.8 times higher in Hispanic women compared to White women. Women at an economic disadvantage and lacking access to affordable abortions have to resort to unsafe options. In this regard, the bill would mitigate disparity and assist Black and Hispanic women with family planning and reproductive care.
PESTEL Analysis
Recommendation and Modification
The H.R.3755 – Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021 is justified from economic, health, and ethical perspectives. However, a bill could be improved if a more prominent accent was made on the effectiveness and efficiency criteria of the bill’s justification. In particular, the “Findings and Purpose” section could be supplemented with economic evidence of the harmful impact produced by abortion-restricting policies. Overall, the efficiency argument could organically support the current ethical rationale since the bill’s positive impact on well-being would be most noticeable in women from ethnic minorities, who suffer most from reproductive injustice.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Abortion surveillance — United States, 2019. Web.
Congress.gov. (2021). H.R.3755 – Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021. Web.
Faundes, A., Comendant, R., Dilbaz, B., Jaldesa, G., Leke, R., Mukherjee, B., Padilla de Gil, M., Tavara, L., & The FIGO initiative for the prevention of unsafe abortion. (2020). Preventing unsafe abortion: Achievements and challenges of a global FIGO initiative. Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 62, 101-112. Web.
Foster, D. G., Biggs, M. A., Ralph, L., Gerdts, C., Roberts, S., & Glymour, M. M. (2022). Socioeconomic outcomes of women who receive and women who are denied wanted abortions in the United States. American Journal of Public Health, 112(9), 1290-1296. Web.
Guendelman, S., Yon, E., Pleasants, E., Hubbard, A., & Prata, N. (2020). Shining the light on abortion: Drivers of online abortion searches across the United States in 2018. Plos One, 15(5), e0231672. Web.
Institute for Women’s Policy Research. (2021). The costs of reproductive health restrictions: An economic case for ending harmful state policies. Web.
Vilda, D., Wallace, M. E., Daniel, C., Evans, M. G., Stoecker, C., & Theall, K. P. (2021). State abortion policies and maternal death in the United States, 2015‒2018. American Journal of Public Health, 111(9), 1696-1704. Web.