a new report finds that despite New Jersey stance on Reproductive Rights it's not that easy to get an abortion in the state the ruter School of Public Health and New Jersey Family Planning League put together the first ever Statewide analysis of abortion access and identified that half 11 of the 21 Counties have limited or no abortion services but the state ranks sixth in the nation for the number of abortions performed here and has seen an increase in the amount of out State patients seeking care here since the 2022 dobs decision anti-abortion Advocates say taxpayer money shouldn't be used to increase those services but the report argues the geographical gaps are problematic for more I'm joined by co-author Laura Lindberg she's a professor at the ruer school of Public Health Laura thanks so much for joining me this report was really interesting because it was this jux deposition of New Jersey taking these really aggressive stances on Reproductive Rights and yet what did you find when it came to access yes so New Jersey has been a leader in protecting abortion right but our report finds continued gaps in Access and rights without access are do not give people the ability to control their reproductive lives so some of the key things that we found in this report was a concerning Gap in the availability of abortion services in the southern part of New Jersey so we find found five counties where there were no abortion clinics in New Jersey and that included the four southernmost counties which puts um great burdens of travel on people in those counties particularly given the weak Transportation infrastructure in those four Southern counties I it was also interesting though beyond that geographical um Gap there that you found even in the areas where there were brick-and mortar providers there seem to be limited Services there can you talk to me a little bit about what you found sure so we found a couple of different things first we identified 41 brick and mortar abortion providers in the state and an additional seven virtual only providers but we found six counties in which the only type of abortion care that was available is medication abortion now while this is a good choice for some people it's only available up through 11 weeks of gation and it's not everyone's first choice and having to travel across counties to access procedural abortion again poses challenges both in time transportation and cost we also found gestational um differences between counties so again those counties with just medication abortion only had care through 11 weeks and we didn't find a single provider in New Jersey that a single brick-and mortar provider that offers abortion care in into the third trimester and we know that U patients in New Jersey are forced to travel out of state to receive this important care and so what are the implications then there according to your report because of course this is all the landscape is being looked at through the lens of a post uh row Wade era um and the governor himself has said that he wants New Jersey to be a safe haven for abortions New Jersey has taken many active steps to increase access to abortion care in the state and certainly to protect rights but some of the things that have gone on to increase access include expanding the type of professionals who can provide abortion care such as giving um the right to provide procedural care to midwives with appropriate training um and there's now efforts underway to increase the Medicaid reimbursement rate in the state um and this is important what our study found was that the Medicaid reimbursement rate for abortion in New Jersey is the lowest of any state and that just doesn't stand with the rest of the values for health care in our state Laura Lindberg is a professor of urban Global Public Health at the ruter school of Public Health Laura thanks for sharing the findings with us thank you