Long Before the Near-Total Ban, Texas Was Home to the Most ‘Abortion Deserts’ in the U.S.

This story was produced in collaboration with Public Health Watch.

When Kristen Holcomb faced an unplanned pregnancy in 2017, she felt isolated, scared and confused. The anxiety didn’t stem from grappling with whether to terminate her pregnancy – she was resolute in her decision to do so. Rather, it came from how she could access abortion care. Lubbock, the West Texas city in which she lived, wasn’t home to an abortion provider. In fact, the entirety of West Texas and the Panhandle – a large swath of the state – had no abortion clinic. 

Following the passage of Texas House Bill 2 (HB 2), a 2013 multi-part state law that forced clinics to comply with medically unnecessary and costly regulations, the sole abortion clinic in Lubbock, a Planned Parenthood health care center, closed its doors. It wasn’t alone – half of the state’s abortion clinics also shut down after the so-called TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Provider) law took effect, slicing the number of clinics from about 40 to fewer than 20 for the state’s 5.4 million reproductive-age women, adding substantial driving distance to the nearest clinic.