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The Impact of State Laws Protecting Abortion Clinics and Reproductive Rights on Crimes Against Abortion Providers: Deterrence, Backlash, or Neither?

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Law and Human Behavior

Abstract

Since Roe v. Wade, most states have passed laws either restricting or further protecting reproductive rights. During a wave of anti-abortion violence in the early 1990s, several states also enacted legislation protecting abortion clinics, staff, and patients. One hypothesis drawn from the theoretical literature predicts that these laws provide a deterrent effect and thus fewer anti-abortion crimes in states that protect clinics and reproductive rights. An alternative hypothesis drawn from the literature expects a backlash effect from radical members of the movement and thus more crimes in states with protective legislation. We tested these competing hypotheses by taking advantage of unique data sets that gauge the strength of laws protecting clinics and reproductive rights and that provide self-report victimization data from clinics. Employing logistic regression and controlling for several potential covariates, we found null effects and thus no support for either hypothesis. The null findings were consistent across a number of different types of victimization. Our discussion contextualizes these results in terms of previous research on crimes against abortion providers, discusses alternative explanations for the null findings, and considers the implications for future policy development and research.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Katherine Spillar, Kimberly Lonsway, and Elizabeth Koenig for preparing and providing access to the database on crimes against abortion clinics, and John Donohue for comments and critiques of an earlier draft. The first author thanks the Davis Center at Harvard University, where he was a Research Fellow when this article was written.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indiana University, Department of Criminal Justice, Sycamore Hall 302, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA

    William Alex Pridemore

  2. John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Department of Sociology, Room 520T, 899 10th Avenue, New York, NY, 10019, USA

    Joshua D. Freilich

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  1. William Alex Pridemore
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Correspondence to William Alex Pridemore.

Appendix A.

Appendix A.

List of states with laws specifically protecting clinics and states with a B− or above on the NARAL index.

Specific legislation

General legislation (B− or above)

California

Alaska

Colorado

California

Kansas

Connecticut

Maine

Delaware

Maryland

Hawaii

Massachusetts

Maine

Michigan

Maryland

Minnesota

Montana

Nevada

New Hampshire

New York

New Jersey

North Carolina

New Mexico

Oregon

New York

Washington

Oregon

Wisconsin

Vermont

 

Washington

 

West Virginia

  1. Note. The list of states with a B− or above on the NARAL index does not include Maine, which was the only state to be dropped from this list when the index scores were purged of the scores on abortion clinic protection. Hawaii is included in the general legislation list, though no clinics from that state returned surveys and thus it is not included in the analysis.

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Pridemore, W.A., Freilich, J.D. The Impact of State Laws Protecting Abortion Clinics and Reproductive Rights on Crimes Against Abortion Providers: Deterrence, Backlash, or Neither?. Law Hum Behav 31, 611–627 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9078-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9078-0

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