Beyond legal access: Barriers and facilitators to abortion care among Spanish-speaking Chicago Abortion Fund grantees
Abortion
Awarded 2026
Emerging Scholars in Family Planning
Gisely Torres, BA
University of Chicago
$7,500

The study explores how Spanish-speaking grantees of the Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF) experience abortion care within a rapidly shifting policy and immigration landscape. Although Illinois is recognized as a state with strong abortion protections, emerging post-Dobbs research shows that patients, particularly Spanish-speaking individuals, immigrants, and those traveling from out of state, continue to face structural barriers related to language access, logistics, and healthcare system navigation. Despite growing research on abortion access inequities, the experiences of Spanish-speaking abortion fund clients remain under explored, especially in high-access, high-migration settings such as Chicago. Using semi-structured interviews with Spanish-speaking grantees (n=25), this study will examine how individuals navigate abortion care from recognizing a need for services to obtaining care, with particular attention to interactions with CAF and clinical providers. Interviews will explore experiences with language accessibility, access to information, emotional and logistical support, and perceptions of safety and trust throughout the process. Interviews with bilingual staff members (n=5) will provide additional context regarding observed patterns in grantee experiences and help refine the participant interview guide. By centering the perspectives of Spanish-speaking abortion fund grantees, this project aims to deepen understanding of how structural and immigration-related factors shape abortion access in a high-demand, high-migration setting, especially amid the recent increased immigration enforcement in Chicago. Findings will be shared with the Chicago Abortion Fund and the broader abortion equity and advocacy community to inform ongoing efforts and contribute to conversations about equitable, language-accessible abortion care.