Restrictive State Abortion Laws Research Articles

The Impact of New and Renewed Restrictive State Abortion Laws on Pregnancy-Capable People with Diabetes.

When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization in June 2022, the constitutional right to abortion was no longer protected by Roe v Wade. Fifteen states now have total or near-total bans on abortion care or no clinics providing abortion services. We review how these restrictions affect the medical care of people with pregestational diabetes. Of the ten states with the highest percent of adult women living with diabetes, eight currently have complete or 6-week abortion bans. People with diabetes are at high risk of diabetes-related pregnancy complications and pregnancy-related diabetes complications and are disproportionately burdened by abortion bans. Abortion is an essential part of comprehensive, evidence-based diabetes care, yet no medical society has published guidelines on pregestational diabetes that explicitly discuss the importance and role of safe abortion care. Medical societies enacting standards for diabetes care and clinicians providing diabetes care must advocate for access to abortion to reduce pregnancy-related morbidity and mortality for pregnant people with diabetes.

State Abortion Policy and Unintended Birth Rates in the United States

Restrictive state abortion laws make it more difficult and costly for women to obtain an abortion. The fundamental law of demand posits that an increase in the cost of an abortion should cause the number of abortions to decrease. This suggests that restrictive state abortion laws should cause women with unintended pregnancies to have fewer abortions and concomitantly more unintended births. This paper investigates the impact four restrictive state abortion laws—No Medicaid Funding, Parental Involvement, Mandatory Counseling and Waiting Periods—have on the unintended birth rates of the 50 US states for the year 2006. Using a variety of methodologies, the empirical results show that, contrary to the theoretical prediction, these four antiabortion laws do not have a significant positive effect on unintended birth rates.

The Impact of State Abortion Policy on the Price of an Abortion

This study empirically examines whether restrictive state abortion laws have an indirect effect on the demand for abortions by increasing the price charged by abortion providers as a result of complying with the laws. The empirical results found that, over the period 2000-2011, state enforcement of a two-visit law and a TRAP law caused an increase in the real price charged by abortion providers by between 13%-15% for a two-visit law and 17%-19% for a TRAP law. These empirical results suggest that these two restrictive state abortion laws indirectly reduce abortion demand through their impact on the price of an abortion.

The Impact of Antiabortion Criminal Activities and State Abortion Policies on Abortion Providers in the United States

This study empirically examined whether acts of antiabortion criminal activities and restrictive state abortion laws had an impact on the number of abortion providers. Using a unique data set, the Feminist Majority Foundation’s 2000 survey of antiabortion criminal acts directed at clinics, providers, healthcare workers and patients, the empirical results showed that acts of violence and harassment reduced the number of abortion providers offering abortion services. An increase in the likelihood of violence or harassment by 10 % reduced the number of abortion providers per 100,000 women of reproductive age by 5.6 and 3.7 %, respectively and the number of abortion providers per 100,000 pregnancies by 7.8 and 5.9 %, respectively. In addition, antiabortion criminal acts were more likely in states with greater economic participation by women, higher levels of sexual violence against women, and western states.

A Critical Reexamination of the Effect of Antiabortion Legislation in the Post-Casey Era

AbstractMichael J. New, in a recent article in this journal, argues that a major reason for the decline in the incidence of abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court's 1992 Casey decision was the increased number of antiabortion laws—parental involvement laws and informed consent laws—enacted at the state level. However, New's analysis contained critical data, measurement, methodological and estimation errors. This article details all the errors and then reexamines the effect of restrictive state abortion laws on the incidence of abortion over the period 1985–2005. The empirical results find little evidence that the decline in the number of abortions performed since the U.S. Supreme Court's 1992 Casey decision was due to the increase in the number of informed consent and parental involvement laws enacted.

Unintended Pregnancy and State Abortion Policy: Rational Choice or Random Behavior?

The rational choice model argues that restrictive state abortion laws, by increasing the cost of engaging in unprotected sexual activity, will induce women to adopt alternative birth control methods and reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancy. The random behavior model argues that women’s decisions to engage in unprotected sexual activity are independent of a state’s restrictive abortion laws. The random behavior model predicts that restrictive state abortion laws will have no effect on the incidence of unintended pregnancy. An analysis of the unintended pregnancy rates for the 50 U.S. states for the years 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008 finds no empirical evidence that restrictive state abortion laws reduce state unintended pregnancy rates. Such a conclusion is inconsistent with the rational choice model, but consistent with the random behavior model.

The Relationship between Restrictive State Abortion Laws and Postpartum Depression

Is there a relationship between restrictive state abortion laws and postpartum depression? Do states with restrictive abortion laws have higher rates of postpartum depression? If there is a relationship, does it differ by the type of restrictive state abortion law? Using the Centers for Disease Control's 2008 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System state survey of the percentage of women who gave birth and suffered from postpartum depression, states with and without restrictive abortion laws were compared. The empirical results found that there were no significant differences in the incidence of postpartum depression between states with parental involvement laws, mandatory counseling laws, waiting period laws, two-visit laws, and states without these restrictive abortion laws. States that prohibit the Medicaid funding of abortions have significantly higher rates of postpartum depression than in those states that fund Medicaid abortions.

Race, Restrictive State Abortion Laws and Abortion Demand

A disproportionately large number of abortions are performed on black and Hispanic women. This study empirically investigates whether restrictive state abortion laws differentially affect the abortion demand of white, black and Hispanic women for the year 2005. A state Medicaid abortion funding restriction significantly decreases the abortion rate of all three races. However, Hispanic women's abortion demand is more sensitive to a Medicaid funding restriction than either white women or black women. Parental involvement laws and mandatory counseling laws have no significant impact on the abortion rates of the three racial groups. Two-visit laws are associated with a significant decrease in the abortion rate of white women, but have no significant effect on the abortion rates of black and Hispanic women.

Social Policy and Abortion: A Review of the Research

Since the Supreme Court's 1973 decision legalizing abortion, many states have enacted laws restricting women's access to an abortion. There has been considerable empirical research on the impact of these restrictive state abortion laws on women's pregnancy resolution decisions. This paper reviews the empirical evidence regarding restric- tions on abortion access. The empirical evidence indicates that demand-side policies (i.e., No Medicaid Funding, Parental Involvement Laws, Mandatory Counseling Laws, Mandatory Waiting Periods Laws, Partial-Birth Abortion Bans) have little effect on the incidence of abortion. TRAP laws, which are supply-side policies, have the greatest effect reducing abortion services. The U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion recognized that states have the right to regulate the procedure. During the first trimester of preg- nancy, states could not enact any laws or regulations that restricted a woman's access to an abortion. During the sec- ond trimester, states could enact laws regulating abortion access, but only if the law had a compelling interest in pro- tecting a pregnant woman's maternal health. During the third trimester, when the fetus is viable, states could enact laws restricting or even prohibiting abortions provided there was a medical exception to protect the life or health of the pregnant woman. In 1992, the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey rejected Roe's rigid trimester pregnancy framework of state abortion regulation and replaced it with the standard. The court ruled that states could impose restrictions on a woman's ac- cess to an abortion provided that the state law or regulation did not have … the purpose or effect of placing a substan- tial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus. The ambiguity of the undue burden stan- dard enabled many states to enact a variety of restrictive abortion laws. Restrictive state abortion laws may influence the likeli- hood of women terminating an unwanted pregnancy in two ways. First, restrictive abortion laws may increase the finan- cial costs (e.g., out-of-pocket cost of the abortion, expenses on travel and accommodations, lost work time, childcare expenses) and the emotional costs (e.g., guilt, remorse, re- gret, humiliation, psychological trauma) incurred by women

Unintended Pregnancies, Restrictive Abortion Laws, and Abortion Demand

This study examines the effect restrictive state abortion laws have on the pregnancy resolution decisions of women with unintended pregnancies. The empirical results find that the abortion ratio and the abortion rate of unintended pregnancies are more sensitive to increases in the abortion price than previous estimates that analyzed total pregnancies (unintended and intended). A Medicaid funding restriction has very little effect on a state's abortion rate of unintended pregnancies, but causes a larger decrease in the number of abortions of unintended pregnancies than previous estimates. A parental involvement law is associated with a significant reduction in a state's abortion ratio and the abortion rate of unintended pregnancies, which suggests that the law may have a behavioral modification effect. Neither a mandatory counseling law nor a two-visit law has a significant effect on a state's abortion ratio and the abortion rate of unintended pregnancies.

Public Preferences, Political Party Control, and Restrictive State Abortion Laws

This study examines the process by which state legislators respond to the public’s preferences about abortion policy over time. We examine the determinants of the enactment by a state of a parental involvement law employing the event history analysis approach. The empirical results suggest that, in the short-term, neither the public’s abortion preferences nor institutional control of state government by the generally prolife Republican Party has a significant impact on the enactment of a parental involvement law, while institutional control by the generally prochoice Democratic Party significantly decreases the likelihood of the passage of a parental involvement law. In the long-term, the public’s abortion preferences are positively associated with the enactment of a parental involvement law. However, when the Republican Party or the Democratic Party have institutional control of the executive and legislative branches of state government, this allows each political party to support or oppose the enactment of a parental involvement law consistent with each party’s public position on the abortion issue, regardless of the public’s abortion preferences or the competitive electoral environment. The empirical results remain robust for a variety of alternative specifications.

The Relationship Between State Abortion Policies and Abortion Providers

This study empirically examines whether restrictive state abortion laws have an impact on the number of abortion providers over the period 1982–2005. The empirical results find that medicaid funding restrictions, parental involvement laws and targeted regulation of abortion providers (TRAP laws) annual licensing fees significantly deter physicians or organizations from becoming or remaining abortion providers. The numerical impact of a Medicaid funding restriction, parental involvement law and a TRAP licensing fee is to reduce the number of abortion providers per 100,000 pregnancies by 12.8, 19.6 and 15.5, respectively, as compared to states without these restrictive abortion laws. The empirical results also show that parental notification laws have a significantly larger negative impact on the number of abortion providers than parental consent laws.

The Impact of State Abortion Policies on Teen Pregnancy Rates

The availability of abortion provides insurance against unwanted pregnancies since abortion is the only birth control method which allows women to avoid an unwanted birth once they are pregnant. Restrictive state abortion policies, which increase the cost of obtaining an abortion, may increase women’s incentive to alter their pregnancy avoidance behavior, thereby reducing the likelihood of unwanted pregnancies. This study, using state-level data for the years 1982, 1992, and 2000, examines the impact of restrictive state abortion laws on teen pregnancy rates. The empirical results indicate that the price of an abortion, Medicaid funding restrictions, and informed consent laws reduce teen, minor teen and non-minor teen pregnancy rates. The empirical results suggest that these abortion policy restrictions affect the unprotected sexual activity of teens resulting in fewer unwanted teen pregnancies.

The role of access in explaining state abortion rates

The likelihood of having an abortion in the U.S.A. is strongly dependent upon where a woman lives. Abortion rates vary markedly from state to state, and these variations have been increasing, especially in recent years. Path analysis shows the causal structure of public demand and access variables that determined state abortion rates in 1991 and 1992. Access variables, including the restrictiveness of state laws regulating abortion, state funding of abortions for poor women and the availability of hospital abortions, affect abortion rates directly. Greater accessibility leads to higher abortion rates. Public demand variables affect abortion rates both directly and indirectly through access conditions. The number of women at risk of unintended pregnancies leads to higher abortion rates directly and indirectly through its effects on medical access. Per capita income, percent Catholic, and percent of the population born outside the state affect abortion rates indirectly through the access variables. High per capita income leads directly to greater availability of hospital abortions, higher levels of state funding of abortions for poor women, less restrictive state abortion laws, and indirectly to higher abortion rates. States with large non-native populations have less restrictive abortion laws and higher abortion rates. The presence of a large Catholic population reduces the number of hospitals offering abortion services and leads indirectly to lower abortion rates. The interaction of public demand and access at the state level creates geographically varying environments in which abortion decisions are made.

Justice Blackmun and legal abortion--a besieged legacy to women's reproductive health.

Justice Harry A. Blackmuns 24-year tenure on the Supreme Court ended in 1994. Justice Blackmun probably will be best remembered for writing the majority opinion in Roe vs. Wade (HO US 113 1973). This landmark decision together with its companion decision of Doe vs. Bolton (410 US 179 1973) declared restrictive state abortion laws unconstitutional. However the same Supreme Court decisions that had permitted public health advances in the 1970s were challenged in the 1980s and then supplanted in the 1990s. The trimester-threshold model which underlay both Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton had its foundations in medicine and not in the US Constitution. At the time few of the elated pro-choice advocates foresaw the implications of these rulings for the delivery of reproductive health care in the 1980s and 1990s. The increased availability of legal abortion in the United States in the 1970s also improved both the safety of abortion methods and the skill of physicians performing abortions. For example clinicians recognized that dilatation and evacuation could terminate pregnancies at 13 weeks gestation or later more safely than intrauterine instillation methods; thus the rigid trimester-threshold concept became irrelevant. Because Roe vs. Wade had expressly allowed regulation of the conditions under which abortion could be performed states were in effect invited to draft new rules to guide medical practice. These regulations took several forms requiring 1) parental consent or notification 2) spousal consent or notification 3) written informed consent 4) 24-hour waiting periods 5) counseling only about risks of the procedure and 6) bureaucratic clinic licensing. Today the trimester-threshold concept is clinically obsolete and has been judicially replaced by one of undue burden. Moreover anti-abortion violence today may threaten legal abortion to a greater extent than Blackmuns fear of judicial restriction. The recent murders of physicians and other abortion clinic employees represent the most severe terrorism by antiabortion extremists.

Abortion-Related Deaths Down 40 Percent Since 1973 Supreme Court Rulings Overturning Restrictive State Abortion Laws

Abortion-Related Deaths Down 40 Percent Since 1973 Supreme Court Rulings Overturning Restrictive State Abortion Laws

Education and the Derived Demand for Children

A negative correlation across households between parent's education and completed fertility is one of the most widely and frequently observed relationships in the empirical literature on human fertility behavior. In this paper I utilize the emerging economic theory of household behavior, which is also employed in other papers in this Supplement, to formulate an explanation for this observed negative correlation. In particular, the paper has two objectives: (1) to consider the mechanisms through which a couple's level of education might affect their fertility and (2) to document the effects of education on one of these mechanisms that is an aspect of fertility control-the choice of a contraceptive technique. The following section briefly outlines the theoretical framework, and in Section III I discuss the mechanisms through which education's influence may operate. Throughout, the discussion is restricted to channels of influence from education to fertility; that is, the reverse causation is ruled out by assumption. The specific focus of this discussion should not be interpreted as an assertion of the exclusiveness or the primacy of education's influence on fertility. Section IV considers the fertility-control decision in greater detail. It also reports on my initial empirical work with the 1965 National Fertility Study, a nationwide sociological survey of 5,600 U.S. women undertaken by the Office of Population Research at