Roadblock to Care: Barriers to Out-of-State Travel for Abortion and Gender Affirming Care

By Julie Lee, Nathan Darmon, Sabah Lokhandwala, Anushka Sikdar, Sohini Upadhay, Eleni Manis

Healthcare seekers are traveling far from home to obtain abortions and gender-affirming care due to new state laws that penalize evidence-based medicine. Prosecutors and state officials can use countless surveillance tools, from automated license plate readers to street cameras, to identify and track those seeking, facilitating, or assisting outof-state care. They can also weaponize commercially available surveillance data. S.T.O.P. used one data broker’s platform to place the homes of visitors to an Illinois abortion clinic across the river in Missouri, where abortion is banned. Several strategies can mitigate tracking risks for those traveling for care in the U.S.