What does the public know about their State’s abortion laws in the post-Dobbs era?

Following the Dobbs decision in the U.S., there were widespread reports of misinformation regarding the ruling. Many Americans may therefore have faced uncertainty about abortion laws in their state, and Latinos—approximately 40% of whom are foreign-born—may be particularly vulnerable due to limited familiarity with the U.S. political system. To better understand awareness of state abortion policies, we fielded a national online panel survey containing large samples of Latinos ( N = 2326) and non-Hispanic whites ( N = 769). We find that Latinos were 6 percentage points less likely to correctly identify their state’s abortion law relative to white Americans and were 10.7 percentage points more likely to overestimate the strictness of those laws, even when controlling for demographic, religious, and political covariates. Foreign-born Latinos were also 19.5 percentage points more likely to overestimate the strictness of their state’s abortion law compared to their U.S.-born counterparts. These findings contribute to our understanding of differential learning following sudden policy change and highlight significant knowledge gaps that may affect whether individuals seek abortion care if they misunderstand the legal status in their state. Such gaps may have downstream consequences for health care access and economic inequality.