In spite of some early predictions of a baby boom, many American women want to delay pregnancy and have fewer children because of the coronavirus pandemic, a new survey from the reproductive rights-focused Guttmacher Institute has found.
But whether they will have the access to the reproductive health services they need to fulfil those wishes is another question. The same survey reported that women are having increased difficulty accessing contraception. Shutdown orders to slow the spread of Covid-19 cost millions of women their jobs and temporarily closed health clinics they relied on.
“In a relatively short time, the Covid-19 crisis and its unprecedented economic and social impacts have already changed when women want to get pregnant, how many children they want and if they’re able to get the contraception they need to make these fundamental life choices,” said Laura Lindberg, principal research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute
Researchers conducted an internet survey among 2,000 cisgender, sexually-active women in the first week of May, when much of the US was under stay-at-home orders.
A third of all the American women who responded to the survey said they wanted to delay pregnancy or have fewer children because of the pandemic. But minority and low-income women, who were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, were especially likely to reconsider their family’s future.
“It’s critical to underscore that Covid-19’s ripple effects are particularly felt by women of color, LGBTQ+ women and lower-income women,” said Lindberg. “These groups already bear the brunt of existing inequities. The pandemic has only made these disparities worse.”
One-third (34%) of all women wanted to get pregnant later or have fewer children because of the pandemic. Nearly half of black (44%) and Latina (48%) women reported wanting to have children later because of the pandemic, as did nearly half (46%) of queer women.
At the same time, nearly equal percentages of women reported trouble getting contraceptive or obtaining a sexual and reproductive health appointment because of the pandemic. More than one-quarter of women worried about their ability to pay for contraception.
Eight Republican-led states have attempted to ban abortion procedures specifically during the pandemic. Access to abortion was especially confusing for women in Texas this spring, as abortion reproductive rights advocates fought the state in court to allow abortions to continue.
At the same time, if women delay having children long-term, it could accelerate another trend in America: declining birth rates. Since the most recent peak in the fertility rate in 2007, women in all parts of the US have chosen to have children later in life.
“We are still in the early stages of this crisis, and its effects will only continue to unfold,” said Lindberg. “Action is needed now to fight the Trump administration’s attacks on reproductive health and rights … and finally achieve much-needed structural changes to our healthcare system to ensure everyone can get the care they need during this pandemic and in the future.”
