How Far Is Too Far? New Evidence on Abortion Clinic Closures, Access, and Abortions

Abstract

We document the effects of abortion-clinic closures on clinic access, abortions, and births using variation generated by a law that shuttered nearly half of Texas’ clinics. We find substantial and nonlinear effects of travel distance on abortion rates: an increase in travel distance from 0–50 miles to 50–100 miles reduces abortion rates by 16 percent, and the effects of increasing distance are smaller when the nearest clinic is already more than 50 miles away. We also demonstrate the importance of congestion with a proxy capturing effects of closures that have little impact on distance but reduce clinics per capita.