My home state is large in a way that boggles the unacquainted.

I learned this tangibly when I was sixteen, tasked with pushing the limits of my license. On weekends off from my first job, I would claim to be fettered by a double shift and bolt from San Antonio. I had only been to two other cities before, and the lure of parts unknown seemed well worth double-digit hours on the road and a day or two or three’s pay in gas money. I would drive eight hours to the Chisos and Guadalupe Mountains, scaled peaks, and drive back. The mileage is roughly equivalent to that between Amsterdam and Barcelona.

When Wendy Davis conducted her filibuster of Texas House Bill 2 — since implemented, then stayed, now in limbo — the people who make their lives at these outskirts were the first thing that sprung to my mind. “Outskirts” is generous: HB2 left no clinics open in, for instance, El Paso, home to over one million people. Or the Rio Grande Valley, home all the grapefruit in the world, where at least one in every three people lives in poverty and almost twice as many are uninsured.

This is who HB2 condemns to the expanse, the expense — things that go unendured by those seeking or in need of abortions who live in major metropolitan areas. Ten hours on the road in a beater, a night in a motel, possible childcare, and two days off from work can surpass $250 in extra costs without blinking. This is over a quarter of one month’s income for someone living below the poverty line — neglecting the emotional costs of surmounting these additional barriers.

All of this strikes me as a terribly unkind structural imposition.

In advance of election day, I thought this issue might be worth considering from a nontraditional lens. Public rhetoric surrounding abortion access in Texas, as in many places, is uncreative and entrenched: it centers, almost without exception, upon energizing those already in respective camps. Nobody in particular pays credence to the concerns of the margins. But the barriers imposed by distance — by the closings supported by advocates of HB2— should seem relevant in particular to individuals who believe abortion should be available in some circumstances but not others. Whatever the condition (health, rape, serious birth defect, early term, you know the list), distance and cost serve as equalizing burdens to those who meet it and those who do not — and Texas moderates should be take this into account at the voting booth.

If you’d like to share this infographic, please find a full-sized version here. If you’re feeling generous, I would appreciate credit — tinkering with the geospatial data & design took quite a while.