TRAP Laws - Abortion Facility Licensing Requirements
About this dataset:
This dataset is valid through October 1, 2021. It does not include any laws enacted or changed after that date, and does not reflect the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade. This database is updated annually, with the next publication scheduled for December 2022.
One way states regulate abortions is to impose legal requirements on health care facilities in which abortions are performed. These legal requirements, known as Targeted Regulation of Abortion Provider (TRAP) laws, apply specifically to abortion providers and mandate additional requirements not applied to other similarly situated health care practices. TRAP laws may address various aspects of facilities’ physical environment and operations (e.g., staffing, required practices, hospital transfer arrangements). This website contains interactive datasets for three different types of TRAP laws:
Abortion Facility Licensing (AFL) Requirements: The AFL dataset is limited to laws requiring facilities in which abortions are performed to be regulated under a distinct abortion facility licensing provision and/or meet special requirements regulating abortion providers.
Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Requirements: The ASC dataset is limited to laws requiring facilities in which abortions are performed to be licensed ASCs and meet regulations governing ASCs.
Hospitalization Requirements (HR): The HR dataset is limited to laws requiring facilities in which abortions are performed to be licensed hospitals.
This page identifies variation in states that have AFL requirements in effect from August 1, 2016 through October 1, 2021. This dataset complements Office-Based Surgery (OBS) Laws, which impose facility and/or operational requirements on non-hospital facilities that provide office-based surgery, procedures and/or anesthesia/sedation.
NAVIGATING THE DATA
Filter
Using the Filter tab, users can answer multiple questions to show all the jurisdictions that meet the combined criteria.
Explore
Using the Explore tab, users can select one question at a time to see all the answers to that question across all jurisdictions.
DISPLAYING THE RESULTS
Map
In the map display, jurisdictions that meet the selected criteria will be illuminated on the map, and also in table format below.
Profiles
In the profiles display, jurisdictions that meet the selected criteria will appear in text-based format.
These datasets were created by a team from the Policy Surveillance Program, Andrew Campbell, JD, Lindsay Cloud, JD, and Adrienne Ghorashi, JD, working with subject matter experts, Bonnie Scott Jones, JD, and Sara Daniel, MPH, of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health Care (ANSIRH), who conceptualized and designed the study.
If you have any questions about the information provided here, please contact LawAtlas@temple.edu.