Changes in travel patterns, funding, and wait times for abortion care following the Dobbs decision among recipients of practical support, 2019-2023.

OBJECTIVE: To describe and compare the sociodemographic and access to care characteristics, specifically travel patterns, funding, and wait times, following the Dobbs decision among people receiving assistance from a practical support abortion fund, and examine factors associated with variation in wait times within each period. METHODS: We used administrative data from a U.S. abortion fund that provides logistical support to people seeking abortions and prioritizes pregnancies of 15 weeks or greater. We included clients that received funding and with abortion appointments between July 2019 and June 2023. Bivariate analyses compared travel patterns, funding, and wait times between pre- and post-Dobbs groups. We used Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests to compare median wait times between periods and Kruskal-Wallis tests to assess within-group differences. RESULTS: Among 3641 clients, 62.9% received support before Dobbs. More than half (56.0%) had pregnancies of 24 weeks or greater at the time of referral to the abortion fund. Compared with pre-Dobbs clients, post-Dobbs clients were more likely to originate from states with restrictive abortion policies (67.8% vs 53.1%) and from the South (69.4% vs 52.6%). Post-Dobbs clients also received more funding on average ($1732 vs $899) and experienced longer wait times (median 9 vs 6 days) for their abortion appointment. CONCLUSIONS: Following Dobbs, clients from a practical support abortion fund were more likely to travel from restrictive states, required more funding, and waited longer for abortion care. These findings highlight increasing barriers to abortion access and the critical role of practical support organizations in helping people obtain care.