![This Feb, 25, 2020 file photo show the Preterm building, the busiest abortion clinic in Ohio, in Cleveland. [Tony Dejak / Associated Press]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/788ae07/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4998x2811+0+0/resize/840x472!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fimages%2Fnews%2Fnpr%2F2020%2F06%2F869958822_2100853388.jpg)
A study recently published by researchers at The Ohio State University found significant disparities emerging in Ohio's abortion rates over the last decade.
From 2010 to 2018, the Statehouse passed more than a dozen abortion regulations. Dr. Alison Norris, a professor of epidemiology and co-author of the study, said that appears to have had a deep impact on who obtained the procedure in Ohio.
In that eight-year time period, abortion rates declined across the country and in the state. But it didn’t decline evenly across Ohio, Norris said.
“When we looked county-by-county in Ohio, we found that people living in urban counties had a decline that looked like the rest of the country," Norris said. "But people living in rural counties had a decline that was much greater, meaning that people in rural counties were using abortion much less."
That disparity has always existed, Norris said but increased significantly in the last 10 years.
“The difference between rural and urban grew," she said. "So rural people were accessing abortion less and less and less over the time, the decade our study examined."
Scientists chalk the nationwide decrease in the procedure to a decline of unwanted pregnancies, she said, catalyzed by more accessible and reliable birth control. Norris doesn't believe the sharper decrease in Ohio's rural areas is tied to lessened demand, though.
"We don't really have any reason to think that people living in rural counties would have fewer unintended pregnancies than living in urban areas, we don't have any reason to believe that their demand would change differently than people living in urban areas," she said.
Clinics that offer surgical abortions in the state dropped by almost half, from 15 to eight, in the decade Norris studied. That reduced access for rural Ohioans.
“We see that this geographic inequity in abortion access increases as the number of restrictions and burdens increases and at the same time that the number of facilities decreases,” she said.
The study was published last month in the American Journal of Public Health.
Copyright 2020 WOSU 89.7 NPR News. To see more, visit WOSU 89.7 NPR News.
