Effects of abortion restrictions on abortion rates

Includes bibliographical references.Many states restrict the access of minors to abortion services and implement restrictions that make abortions more difficult for women to obtain. The purpose of this paper is to show that these state restrictions do have some effect on overall state and teen abortion rates. Through regression analysis this paper estimates the impacts of these enforced abortion restrictions on abortion rates between 1973 and 2008. Using four estimation methods that account for difficult- to-measure variables the results suggest that parental involvement laws can decrease minors’ demand for abortion by about seven percent. The incidence of other state restrictions, such as mandatory delay after counseling, can decrease overall state abortion rates by four percent.B.S. (Bachelor of Science