IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/33548.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Road Not Taken: How Driving Distance and Appointment Availability Shape the Effects of Abortion Bans

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel L. Dench
  • Caitlin K. Myers
  • Mayra Pineda-Torres

Abstract

We use difference-in-differences research designs to estimate the effects of abortion bans on births at the county level, leveraging data on changes in driving distance to the nearest facility and appointment availability at facilities in the destination city. We find that the effects of abortion bans operate mainly through distance. In counties where the closest abortion facility was 50 miles away pre-Dobbs, a total ban is estimated to increase births by 0.8-1.0% if distance does not change, but by 2.1%-2.2% if distance rises to 300 miles—corresponding to the increase experienced by the average resident of a ban state. We also find that 6-week gestational age limits are nearly as impactful as total bans, underscoring the substantial burden these regulations impose. Limited appointment availability in destination cities modestly amplifies these effects. We do not observe evidence that the effects of bans on fertility have diminished over time, despite expansions in logistical, financial, and telehealth abortion support, underscoring the persistent role that geographic barriers play in abortion access.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel L. Dench & Caitlin K. Myers & Mayra Pineda-Torres, 2025. "The Road Not Taken: How Driving Distance and Appointment Availability Shape the Effects of Abortion Bans," NBER Working Papers 33548, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33548
    Note: CH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • K23 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33548. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.