Are Americans Moving Out of States With Strict Abortion Laws?

A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found Americans are moving out of states with strict abortion bans, prompting coverage from some outlets on the left, and a rebuttal from National Review (Right bias).

The Report: Most notably, the study found the 13 states with strict abortion bans collectively lost 36,000 residents per quarter since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The analysis is based on change-of-address figures from the U.S. Postal Service and found the impact was largest among single-person households. The story was covered by outlets on the left, such as CBS News (Lean Left bias), Jezebel (Left bias), The Spokesman-Review (Lean Left bias), and Them (Lean Left bias).

The Rebuttal: Michael J. New of National Review criticized the study, arguing that change-of-address data is not an effective way to measure interstate migration because not everyone who moves files for an address card, and that when people do report an address change, the Postal Service discloses only aggregate data for ZIP codes where more than ten people have done so. New also pointed out that the study did not consider data from the second half of 2023, or 2024, and criticized “academic researchers and their allies in the mainstream media” for working “overtime to try to find evidence of the negative impact of pro-life laws.”