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.