‘I’m Trusting You with My Entire Life’: Networked Pathways to Abortion Care Access

Since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) Supreme Court ruling in the United States, twenty-one states have introduced abortion restrictions or outright bans that reduce reproductive care access for all pregnant people. This has disproportionately impacted lower-income and racially marginalized women, who are both most likely to seek out abortions and face the greatest structural barriers to access. This project compares three different pathways women living in states with abortion bans use to access abortions in the post-Dobbs era: 1) using abortion funds to finance physical travel to a clinic in a state where abortions are still legal, 2) using telemedicine organizations to access medication abortion (mifepristone and misoprostol) via the mail, and 3) using abortion pills from underground community networks to self-manage abortions at home. This paper analyzes the impersonal ties that women have to trust in order to access abortions. Most women find out about their options for abortion access via social media and the internet, and a few use personal or institutional networks, but because of the heightened stigma and legal surveillance of abortions, many women pursue their options alone. And yet, they must learn to trust the impersonal network of activists and advocates who enable access (via abortion funds, telemedicine or community networks). The pregnant women I interview describe this as a “leap of faith.” These are weak, impersonal and disposable ties but they are trusted because pregnant people need abortions and choose to rely on a faceless group of people they know are committed to reproductive justice. Drawing on over 150 interviews with abortion seekers, as well as abortion fund workers, clinicians, and abortion advocates, this paper situates the impersonal but trusted networks that make abortion possible within the broader sociological literature on health networks.