Do Restrictions Beget Responsibility? The Case of U.S. Abortion Legislation

Amanda J. Felkey and Kristina M. Lybecker

The American Economist, 2018, vol. 63, issue 1, 59-70

Abstract: Over the past decade, more than 25 U.S. states enacted legislation surrounding abortions. By analyzing state abortion legislation and proxying how the cost of obtaining an abortion varies across states, this study assesses the implications of legislative changes on women’s contraceptive choices. Examining women by race/ethnicity, income, age, and religious affiliation, the results show that women respond to increased restrictions on abortion availability and cost but that the effects are very small. This study demonstrates that legislation restricting women’s access to abortions fails to promote greater use of more effective contraceptive methods, increasing the likelihood of unwanted births and illegal abortion procedures. JEL Classifications : D1, D81, I18, J13

Keywords: birth control; contraception; abortion legislation; unwanted births; contraceptive choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0569434517692972 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:amerec:v:63:y:2018:i:1:p:59-70

DOI: 10.1177/0569434517692972

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The American Economist from Sage Publications
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().