NIMBY Syndrome and Abortion Access

Abstract

The potential for “not-in-my-backyard” (NIMBY) sentiments to shape public attitudes is well-documented. However, to date, research on NIMBYism has focused on attitudes about building substantial infrastructure that may undermine property values (e.g., wind turbines; affordable housing) and the opening of facilities like homeless shelters or drug rehabilitation centers that residents may fear will attract unsavory clientele to their neighborhood. Here we demonstrate that NIMBY considerations can also shape attitudes about a “hot button” social issue that is typically not thought of in NIMBY terms: abortion policy. We show that residents of an urban area adjacent to states that recently imposed restrictive abortion policies are less supportive of facilitating abortion access for out-of-state patients when those services would be provided in their own neighborhood, as opposed to in their state.