The Impacts of Restricted Access to Abortion and Family Planning Services: Evidence from Clinic Closures in Texas

Access to abortion and publicly funded family planning services in the U.S. has declined considerably over the past five years. We separately identify the impacts of restricted access to abortion clinics and non-abortion family planning clinics on reproductive behavior using data on abortions, births, and contraceptive purchases. Variation in clinic access comes from three pieces of legislation in Texas that have resulted in the closure of more than half of the state’s abortion clinics and large cuts in funding to non-abortion family planning clinics. First, we show that increasing the driving distance to the nearest abortion provider by 50 miles reduces the number of abortions within Texas by 10.6%, though much of this decrease is offset by increases in bordering states. We find that reduced access to abortion services leads to an increase in the number of births; births among the most affected group – women in their thirties – increase by approximately 1% for a 50 mile increase in distance to the nearest clinic. Using retail scanner data, we find that reduced access to abortion services also leads to increased contraceptive purchases, suggesting that individuals are taking precautionary measures in response to the increased cost of seeking an abortion. Second, we find that decreased access to non-abortion family planning clinics also leads to an increase in the number of births; births among the most affected groups – women age 25-34 – increase by approximately 1.6% for a 25 mile increase in distance to the nearest clinic receiving public funding. JEL Codes: J13, I18, J08, J18, I38