Texas Senate Bill 8 significantly reduced travel to abortion clinics in Texas

Abstract

The Dobbs v. Jackson decision by the United States Supreme Court has rescinded the constitutional guarantee of abortion across the United States. As a result, at least 13 states have banned abortion access with unknown effects. Using “Texas” SB8 law that similarly restricted abortions in Texas, we provide insight into how individuals respond to these restrictions using aggregated and anonymized human mobility data. We find that “Texas” SB 8 law reduced mobility near abortion clinics in Texas by people who live in Texas and those who live outside the state. We also find that mobility from Texas to abortion clinics in other states increased, with notable increases in Missouri and Arkansas, two states that subsequently enacted post-Dobbs bans. These results highlight the importance of out-of-state abortion services for women living in highly restrictive states.

The Effects of the Dobbs Decision on Fertility

“…6 We divide these birth counts by the corresponding population counts, limiting to women age 15-44 for overall and by race/ethnicity estimates, in each state from census estimates using the single-race estimates of the resident population as of July 1 of each year (Census, 2016(Census, , 2021(Census, , 2022. 7 out-of-state facilities (White et al, 2021), increased requests for self-managed medication abortions (Aiken et al, 2022a), and reduced mobility near abortion clinics in Texas (Andersen et al, 2023). In a preliminary analysis based on provisional data, it was also shown to increase fertility (Bell et al, 2023).…”