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This week marks the 4th anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion and unleashing a wave of state-by-state abortion bans and restrictions. Today, 17 states have either a complete abortion ban or a ban on abortions after six weeks of gestation (effectively a total ban, given the four weeks it usually takes women to even know they’re pregnant), and a patchwork of other restrictions have rippled across the U.S., creating confusion for patients and medical providers alike.

While Dobbs did not serve as the start of abortion restrictions in the U.S. — a bevy of state-specific requirements already had been chipping away at reproductive healthcare access for the prior two decades —- it was, nonetheless, a landmark legal moment. And as sources have been sharing with us this week, it’s a moment that has produced clear ramifications for the economy and the healthcare system well beyond the halls of the obstetrics department.

Specifically, a new analysis from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research shows that abortion restrictions across the country have cost women earnings and job opportunities to the tune of $140 billion annually. “Four years on, my diagnosis is that the economic impacts are significant, and they are persistent,” Melissa Mahoney, an associate professor of economics at UNC-Asheville and one of the report's authors, told me during this Forbes Newsroom segment.

I also spoke with Dr. Sara Neill, a physician-researcher and the senior author on a study of the clinical effects of........

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