Mapping Abortion Clinics Post-Dobbs: Changing U.S. Clinic Caseloads

• In Event: Medical Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 3. Reproductive Health

Abstract

Scholars have long recognized that state level policies have implications for individual health outcomes. One profound policy example is the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision which overturned the federally protected right to abortion, resulting in numerous state-specific abortion restrictions. Existing literature demonstrates that these abortion clinic closures and restrictions did not decrease abortions provided, but shifted the caseload, marked by an increase in patients traveling across state lines after the Dobbs decision. State specific abortion policies have grave consequences for women’s health, lives, and safety. I utilize the Myers Abortion Facility Database and ArcGIS Pro to ask how has the geographic distribution of patient demands for abortion changed since the Dobbs decision? I rely upon Network Analysis to map the driving time from U.S. counties to the closest open abortion facility. In October of 2025, 13.2 million more women of reproductive age live over four hours from the closest abortion facility compared to January of 2022, reflected by a closure of 83 less available facilities, many concentrated in the southeastern part of the United States. Following the Dobbs decision, there are 178 counties and over 4.8 million women of reproductive age living closest to a singular facility in South-Central Kansas, suggesting unequal caseload burdens present across the United States. Evidently, spatial inequality of abortion access exists.

Author

• Amber Claire Smith, Harvard University