Abortion bans across the US will pile pressure on economically vulnerable women who are already struggling because of high inflation and recession fears, economists and reproductive policy experts have warned.

The reaction to the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the nearly 50-year-old Roe vs Wade precedent enshrining the right to an abortion has rippled quickly through US states, each of which must now decide how to regulate the procedure — or allow it at all.

Nearly 30mn women between the ages of 15 and 44 live in states that have already banned or are likely to ban abortion statewide since the ruling. Around 290,000 legal abortions occurred in these states in 2020, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Guttmacher Institute.