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. 2023 Mar 20:4:1117724.
doi: 10.3389/fgwh.2023.1117724. eCollection 2023.

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

Martin S Andersen  1 , Christopher Marsicano  2 , Mayra Pineda Torres  3 , David Slusky  4
Affiliations

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

Martin S Andersen et al. Front Glob Womens Health. .

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The Dobbs v. Jackson decision by the United States Supreme Court has rescinded the constitutional guarantee of abortion across the United States.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.

Keywords: abortion; digital health; health policy; mobility; public policy.

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Conflict of interest statement

DS reports serving as a paid expert witness in litigation concerning abortion regulations. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Abortion policies by state, following Dobbs v. Whole Women's Health.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Device counts did not appreciably change following Texas’ SB8. Coefficients are the interaction of an indicator for Texas and date from a two-way fixed effects Poisson regression of total devices seen in each state on date and state fixed effects. Standard errors clustered at the state level.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Visits (total devices) and visitors (unique devices) to areas near abortion clinics in Texas, relative to clinics in other states and to August 2nd, 2021. Coefficient estimates for the interaction of date with an indicator for Texas from two-way fixed effects Poisson regression, including clinic and date controls. Standard errors are clustered at state level.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Percentage change in mobility near abortion clinics by state for Texas devices relative to non-Texas devices (outline colors correspond to Figure 1). Each state is shaded according to the predicted percentage change in mobility from Texas to the state following SB8's implementation. Estimates are from destination-state specific two-way fixed effects Poisson regressions of visitors on a dummy for a Texas origin interacted with Post SB8, including (destination) clinic-by-origin Census block group and date fixed effects.
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References

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