Catholic Social Science Review

Volume 15, 2010

Location Decisions of Abortion Clinics and Crisis Pregnancy Centers in California

Data on the location of abortion clinics and crisis pregnancy centers in California are used to estimate Poisson models of the number of both kinds of clinic, to compare their location decisions, and to better understand the factors which limit clinic availability in some counties. The locations of the two types of clinic are determined in significantly different ways. Market size is the most important factor explaining the lack of clinics in certain counties; labor force participation rates, Catholic population, and cultural/political environment also play significant roles. Ethnicity plays only a modest role in clinic location. Instrumental variables generalized methods of moments estimates suggest that the number of abortion clinics has no independent effect on the number of crisis pregnancy centers.