Working Paper: NBER ID: w23634
Authors: Stefanie Fischer; Heather Royer; Corey White
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 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 20.5% and births rose 2.6% in counties that no longer had an abortion provider within 50 miles. Changes in the family planning market induced a 1.5% 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.
Keywords: abortion; family planning; fertility; Texas; reproductive health
JEL Codes: I18; I38; J08; J13; J18
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| reduced access to abortion services (J13) | reduction in abortions (J13) |
| absence of local abortion services (J13) | increase in births (J13) |
| absence of publicly funded family planning clinic (J13) | increase in births (J13) |
| reduced access to family planning services (J13) | minimal changes in contraceptive purchases (D19) |