One of the study’s authors, Middlebury College economist Caitlin Myers, told the Washington Examiner that the finding is a significant update to the understanding of the effect of abortion restrictions, as the existing behavioral economic research, conducted before the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned federal abortion protections, indicated that state differences in abortion access did not necessarily affect sexual behavior. 

The authors found that, following the Dobbs decision, people began to make decisions to practice safer sex to reduce the risk of pregnancy in states that banned elective abortion, supporting the argument from anti-abortion advocates that people would take precautions to avoid getting pregnant if abortion were not available.

“Dobbs was such a big deal, it was so in the public eye, everybody was talking about it, that a lot more people were generally aware of whether they were in a state that abandoned abortion,” Myers said. 

Myers and her co-authors published their findings as part of the NBER’s working paper series, meaning they have not been peer-reviewed.

Post-Dobbs condom purchases increased by 5.4% in states with near-total abortion prohibitions compared to states with laws protecting abortion access. Similarly, gonorrhea infections in states with near-total abortion bans went down by 21% compared to states with unfettered abortion access before the third trimester. 

Myers and her colleagues used gonorrhea as a proxy measurement for risky sexual behavior as opposed to other sexually transmitted infections because symptoms become apparent relatively quickly after contracting the illness and do not go away without seeing a doctor. Other bacterial STIs, such as syphilis and chlamydia, can be asymptomatic and only detected during annual wellness visits. 

Gonorrhea and chlamydia rates have been on a downward trend in recent years nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but Myers’s research indicates the rate of decrease is faster in states with abortion restrictions.

Myers said “there’s no perfect method for observing sexual behavior,” but that these approximation measurements are better than self-reported data, as people tend to overestimate the degree to which they practice safe sex.

The study notes that there is also little regional variation within abortion ban states on over-the-counter birth control sales, even in states that neighbor more those with more permissive abortion laws. 

For example, a resident in El Paso, Texas, is much closer to New Mexico, which has no gestational age limit, than a resident in Houston, but condom purchases in El Paso and Houston are relatively equal.

Myers said that, with the national spotlight on the state effects of the Dobbs decision, casual followers of the news were more likely to know about abortion bans in their state rather than think about the issue in terms of the distance they would need to travel to obtain an abortion. 

Safer sex does not eliminate demand for abortion

But Myer and her colleagues argue that this increase in safer sex does not necessarily translate to eliminating the demand for abortion. They contend that the increase in condom sales may translate to fewer unintended pregnancies that end in abortion, but it does not eliminate the demand for abortion because it does not eliminate the risk of pregnancy.

“The basic conclusion that we reach is, yes, there is a reduction in unintended pregnancies, and also it’s not large enough to think that it would be reasonable to think that basically nobody’s getting an abortion anymore,” Myer said, adding that “two things can be true.”

Myers opposed the overturning of Roe and, in 2021, wrote an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of the abortion providers in the Dobbs case. She and her co-authors on the brief argued that abortion rates are “causally connected to women’s advancement in social and economic life.” 

Since then, Myers has written multiple other papers on abortion, sex, and fertility, including a seminal 2024 paper indicating that states with bans on elective abortion at all stages of pregnancy have an average increase in births of 2.3% relative to if no bans had been enforced. 

Abortion data since 2023 also indicate that the Dobbs decision did not stop the upward trend in the number of abortions nationwide.

The pro-abortion-rights Guttmacher Institute’s annual report, published in March, estimates that there were 1.1 million abortions nationally in 2025, a slight increase from the year before. That increase is likely because of telemedicine access to the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol across state lines. 

SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES SPLIT OVER ABORTION AND TRANSGENDER MEDICINE IN UNION CONTRACTS BILL

About 91,000 women from the 13 states with complete bans on elective abortion received abortion pills through the mail and telehealth in 2025, compared to only 72,000 the year prior, according to Guttmacher.

Conversely, 62,000 women in abortion-ban states traveled across state lines for the procedure, compared to 74,000 in 2024.