Out of State Abortions in Washington, DC

Madeline Taub’s Final Project

Washington, DC does not have voting representation in Congress. Despite paying federal taxes and having a population larger than two other states (Vermont and Wyoming), DC’s citizens are denied the ability to decide their own laws and funding. This is why DC wants Statehood. DC citizens want to be given the rights that other American citizen who pays federal taxes are given. This issue of DC Statehood intersects with many major issues in the United States, including abortion rights. Congress controls DC’s laws and budget, therefore, even when DC citizens vote for increased abortion access or funding, Congress has the ability to block access.

“If abortion is not federally protected, Congress could try to ban or restrict abortion in D.C. Restrictions would especially impact Black people’s access to this critical healthcare, as in 2019, 53% of abortions in the District were obtained by Black people,” according to DC ACLU’s website.

An example of Congress controlling DC’s laws is the Dornan Amendment. This law makes it so that DC cannot use congressionally-appropriated funds to pay for abortions. DC residents had no say in whether this law was passed since Congress can alter their budget and laws— this is dangerous for DC cizitens but also has ramifications throughout the country.

DC has a larger percentage of out of state abortions than anywhere else in the U.S. This can be seen through the chart below.

DC Abortion Fund states on their website that they support people from all states who want to obtain an abortion in DC. But many organizations in DC, including DCAF and DC ACLU said they did not start asking which state people were traveling to for abortions until 2020, making the current data incomplete. All of this makes is difficult to show with data who, besides DC, Maryland, and VA reisdents, would be affected if DC lost abortion access.

One activist I spoke to said that she drives people who travel to DC for abortions to clinics. Recently, she said there’s been an uptick of people traveling from other states, including examples such as a mother from Chicago. Besides these types of personal accounts though, without the complete data it is impossible to paint the full picture of the extent to which others would be affected if DC’s abortion laws are changed by Congress.

This chart shows the amount of flow between states that occurs as people try to access abortions. The red line shows the flows to and from DC from both Virignia and Maryland.









While DC lacks representation, it is still a hub for abortion access. This chart shows the connection between states, clearly showing the direction and amount of abortions coming in and out of each state and DC.

In order to protect DC's abortion access for others around the country, DC needs statehood.