As Roe v. Wade comes under threat, attention turns to the issue of travel in abortion access; it's nothing new for rural women

Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring a woman's right to chose an abortion, appears to be under eminent threat, if recent commentary and the recent oral argument in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization is any indication.  If Roe falls, the states will once again represent a patchwork of abortion access.  

Interestingly, and probably not surprisingly, this turn of events has pro-choice advocates focused on the issue of distance--in particular the distance that women may have to travel, across state boundaries, to get an abortion in a state where they are available.  Travel across state lines has become more of an issue in recent years as abortion restrictions in some states made it easier for women in some states to cross state lines to get abortions in neighboring states--or even to fly across the country to states like California, where abortion services are more readily available.    

Here's one such resource, reflecting the renewed interest in distance and travel, from the Guttmacher Institute.  The heading is "If Roe v. Wade Falls: Travel Distance for People Seeking Abortion," and the subtitle, if you will, follows: 

If the U.S. Supreme Court weakens or overturns Roe v. Wade, 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion. This interactive map allows users to see the potential effects of a total ban, a 15-week ban and a 20-week ban on how far people seeking abortion care would have to drive to find care. The map also shows which states are unlikely to ban abortion and would have the nearest clinic for people driving from states where abortion is banned.

Here's another story focused on distances within states, as I have done in my scholarly work.  This story details access and lack thereof in Montana, the fourth largest state in the nation in terms of land area covered.  Read more of my analysis of the travel burden within states here, here, and here.  Hannah Haksgaard has also written of travel in relation to abortion access.  

In any event, this issue much discussed in the pre-Roe era when some states permitted abortion, and still discussed in many other nations (think Irish women having to travel to Britain), is now suddenly, robustly back in our consciousness and in the news.  It's a pity we couldn't get pro-choice advocates to focus a bit more on distance and travel when issues like the "undue burden" and "substantial obstacle" were the legal standards at stake, back when we were not in panic mode about wholesale loss of a constitutional right to choose.