The Impacts of Reduced Access to Abortion and Family Planning Services on Abortion, Births and Contraceptive Purchases

Abstract

Between 2011 and 2014, Texas enacted three pieces of legislation that significantly reduced funding for family planning services and increased restrictions on abortion clinic operations. Together this legislation creates cross-county variation over time in access to abortion and family planning services, which we leverage to understand the impact of family planning and abortion clinic access on abortions, births, and contraceptive purchases. In response to these policies, abortions to Texas residents fell 16.7% and births rose 1.3% in counties that no longer had an abortion provider within 50 miles. Changes in the family planning market induced a 1.2% increase in births for counties that no longer had a publicly funded family planning clinic within 25 miles. Meanwhile, responses of retail purchases of condoms and emergency contraceptives to both abortion and family planning service changes were minimal.