--- title: This Is How Far Women in the US Have to Travel for Abortions description: Abortion is a legal medical procedure in the U.S., but whether a woman has access to the procedure depends largely on where she lives canonical: https://time.com/4967735/how-far-american-women-travel-for-abortion/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-03T20:36:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T17:42:51.927Z article:section: Health og:title: This Is How Far Women Travel for an Abortion in the U.S. og:description: Whether a woman has access to the procedure depends largely on where she lives og:url: https://time.com/4967735/how-far-american-women-travel-for-abortion/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Is How Far Women Travel for an Abortion in the U.S. twitter:description: Whether a woman has access to the procedure depends largely on where she lives twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Is How Far American Women Have to Travel to Get an Abortion > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Oct 3, 2017 8:36 PM UTC by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Oct 3, 2017 8:36 PM UTC [Abortion](http://time.com/4959412/unsafe-abortion/) is a legal medical procedure in the United States, but whether a woman has access to the procedure depends largely on where she lives. A [new report](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667%2817%2930158-5/fulltext?elsca1=tlpr) published Tuesday in _The Lancet Public Health_ journal found that American women travel an average of 11 miles to receive an abortion and about 20% will travel more than 43 miles for the procedure. Areas where U.S. women had to travel more than 30 miles for an abortion were largely in Iowa, Texas, Missouri and Montana. The latter three states have adopted more abortion restrictions during the study period. The researchers looked at the Guttmacher Institute’s Abortion Provider Census and other national datasets to estimate average travel times for women seeking abortions in the United States. In the U.S., it’s estimated that 45% of pregnancies are unintended and 42% will end in abortion, according to the report. Women living in cities had closer access to abortion clinics, the report found, but women living in rural counties in Montana, Texas, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas had to travel more than 180 miles. Overall, the researchers say that how far women have to travel to clinics remained largely unchanged from 2011 to 2014, the time period the researchers studied. In seven states, distances to clinics have grown, and in nine states, distances have gotten shorter.Since many states have laws that require women to have 18- to 72-hour waiting periods after in-person counseling about abortions, significant travel time becomes a barrier, since women have to travel to abortion clinics more several times. **MORE:** [Nearly Half of Abortions Around the World Are Unsafe](http://time.com/4959412/unsafe-abortion/) “How far a woman has to travel for an abortion is a key measure of access, alongside stigma, restrictive laws and financial constraints,” said author Dr. Jonathan Bearak, a senior research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute in a statement. “Our findings illustrate the vast differences in access to abortion mapped across the US, with women in remote, rural areas facing the longest journeys for an abortion.” Women’s access to abortion remains a contentious topic in 2017\. The House of Representatives is set to [vote](http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/03/politics/house-vote-abortion-after-20-week-ban/index.html) Tuesday on legislation that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4967735/how-far-american-women-travel-for-abortion/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4967735/how-far-american-women-travel-for-abortion/"},"headline":"This Is How Far American Women Have to Travel to Get an Abortion","datePublished":"2017-10-03T20:36:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T17:42:51.927Z","description":"Abortion is a legal medical procedure in the United States, but whether a woman has access to the procedure depends largely on where she lives","url":"https://time.com/4967735/how-far-american-women-travel-for-abortion/","keywords":["Reproductive Health","abortion","Travel","onetime","healthytime"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/reproductive-health/","name":"Reproductive Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4967735/how-far-american-women-travel-for-abortion/","name":"This Is How Far American Women Have to Travel to Get an Abortion"}}]}] ```