Geographic Realities of Abortion Access in Texas: Exploring the Heterogeneous Effects of Texas Senate Bill 8 with Mobile Phone Data

TL;DR

This study shows how Texas Senate Bill 8 reduced abortion access, especially for low-income women, using mobile phone data to track clinic visits.

Contribution

The study uses mobile phone data to quantify the heterogeneous effects of SB8 on abortion access across socioeconomic groups.

Findings

SB8 led to 34% fewer abortion clinic visits in Texas compared to Oklahoma.

Low-income communities were disproportionately affected by reduced access to abortion care.

The bill's effects were analyzed using 16 months of mobile phone data from 21 Texas and four Oklahoma clinics.

Abstract

Restrictive abortion policies have generated reductions in abortion access, increased travel distance to abortion clinics as a result of clinic closures, and produced declines in maternal health outcomes. This study explores the effects of Texas Senate Bill 8 (SB8), the most restrictive bill prior to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, on abortion access in Texas. We used a difference-in-differences approach to explore the heterogeneous effects of SB8 on abortion access for communities of varying socioeconomic statuses and travel distances using 16 months of SafeGraph Inc. mobile phone pattern data for 21 Texas and four Oklahoma abortion clinics between January 1, 2021, and April 30, 2022. Implementation of SB8 was associated with 34% fewer abortion clinic visits in Texas than in Oklahoma. The effects of SB8 on access to abortion care across state borders had a disproportionately greater impact on women in low-income communities. This study provides further evidence of the discriminatory impacts of SB8 in Texas.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11113-025-09948-0.

Figures