TRAP laws and the invisible labor of US abortion providers
- 26 June 2015
- journal article
- other
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Critical Public Health
- Vol. 26 (1), 77-87
- https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2015.1077205
Abstract
Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP laws) are proliferating in the United States and have increased barriers to abortion access. In order to comply with these laws, abortion providers make significant changes to facilities and clinical practices. In this article, we draw attention to an often unacknowledged area of public health threat: how providers adapt to increasing regulation and the resultant strains on the abortion provider workforce. Current US legal standards for abortion regulations have led to an increase in laws that target abortion providers. We describe recent research with abortion providers in North Carolina to illustrate how providers adapt to new regulations, and how compliance with regulation leads to increased workload and increased financial and emotional burdens on providers. We use the concept of invisible labor to highlight the critical work undertaken by abortion providers not only to comply with regulations, but also to minimize the burden that new laws impose on patients. This labor provides a crucial bridge in the preservation of abortion access. The impact of TRAP laws on abortion providers should be included in the consideration of the public health impact of abortion laws.Keywords
Funding Information
- Society for Family Planning (SFPRF7- 15, Rebecca Mercier: PI) and the Greenwall Foundation (A15-0165)
- National Center for Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health (KL2TR001109)
This publication has 33 references indexed in Scilit:
- Disparities in Abortion Rates: A Public Health ApproachAmerican Journal of Public Health, 2013
- Resistance and vulnerability to stigmatization in abortion workSocial Science & Medicine (1982), 2011
- Dynamics of stigma in abortion work: Findings from a pilot study of the Providers Share WorkshopSocial Science & Medicine (1982), 2011
- The Supply-Side Economics of AbortionThe New England Journal of Medicine, 2011
- How commonly do US abortion patients report attempts to self-induce?American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 2011
- Bringing evidence to the debate on abortion coverage in health reform legislation: findings from a national survey in the United StatesContraception, 2010
- Legal Barriers to Second-Trimester Abortion Provision and Public Health ConsequencesAmerican Journal of Public Health, 2009
- The impact of provider availability and legal restrictions on the demand for abortions by young womenThe Social Science Journal, 2007
- Timing of steps and reasons for delays in obtaining abortions in the United StatesContraception, 2006
- Risk Factors for Legal Induced Abortion–Related Mortality in the United StatesObstetrics & Gynecology, 2004