FERTILITY EFFECTS OF ABORTION AND BIRTH CONTROL PILL ACCESS FOR MINORS

This article empirically. assesses whether age-restricted access to abortion and the birth control pill influence minors' fertility in the United States. There is not a strong consensus in previous literature regarding the relationship between laws restricting minors' access to abortion and minors' birth-rates. This is the first study, to recognize that state laws in place prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision enabled minors to legally consent to surgical treatment-inch (ding abortion-in some states hut not in others, and to construct abortion access variables reflecting this. In this article, age-specific policy, variables measure either a minor's legal ability to obtain an abortion or to obtain the birth control pill without parental involvement. I find fairly strong evidence that young women's birthrates dropped as a result of abortion access as well as evidence that birth control pill access led to a drop in birthrates among whites.