Race, Restrictive State Abortion Laws and Abortion Demand

States which did not fund Medicaid abortions in 2005 are: AL, AR, CO, DE, FL, GA, ID, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MI, MS, MO, NE, NV, NH, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WV, WI and WY.

States with parental involvement laws in 2005 are: AL, AZ, AR, CO, DE, GA, ID, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, NE, NC, ND, OH, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA,WV, WI and WY.

States with mandatory counseling laws in 2005 are: AL, AR, GA, ID, KS, KY, LA, MI, MN, MS, MO, NE, ND, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TX, UT, VA, WV, and WI.

States with two-visit laws in 2005 are: IN, LA, MO, VT and WI.

The exact formula to calculate the percentage change in the abortion rate is 100*(e^b –1), where b is the Medicaid funding restriction coefficient.

An anonymous referee suggested using mandatory counseling data from the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), an organization whose sole objective to ban all abortions. The dataset contains a subset of states that have mandatory counseling laws that the NRLC considers effective in dissuading women from having an abortion. Even though there is the problem of ideological selection bias, the abortion demand equation was reestimated for all three racial groups using the NRLC’s list of effective mandatory counseling states. For all three racial groups, No Medicaid funding was still significantly negative and parental involvement laws and two-visit laws were still insignificant. The NRLC’s mandatory counseling law variable was insignificant for blacks, significantly positive (rather than negative) for whites and significantly negative for Hispanic women. The numerical value of the negative coefficient showed that a NRLC mandatory counseling law lowered the abortion rate of Hispanic women by more than an implausible 100 %.