If the future is one in which interstate travel for abortion is not assured, in which returning to your home state after receiving an abortion can leave you open to harassment or prosecution by police, in which your cellphone and internet history can be seized as evidence against you, in which the chasm between North Dakota and Minnesota is larger than it already is—then more Americans might decide to pick up and leave.

Even in this extreme future, however, mass migration seems unlikely. Consider why people usually move. According to census data, the most commonly stated reasons Americans move are related to housing, family, and jobs. A couple now able to work remotely may switch states to find a bigger house that can accommodate a home office, for instance. The “other” category, which would include politically motivated migration, never tops 5.4 percent.

Abortion isn’t just a political issue, of course; it’s also an economic issue, as my colleague Annie Lowrey recently explained. But unlike racial, religious, or LGBTQ discrimination, the economic pain of losing access to abortion is not distributed over time. Instead it is concentrated at the moment of discovering an unwanted pregnancy, or when pregnant and facing a medical emergency, and potentially when making a decision about birth control. In these moments, moving is not the priority—health care is. An abortion-related move has to be forward-looking and hinged on a need that one might never have.