The Spillover Effects of Restrictive Abortion Laws

Prior research has consistently found that state laws which restrict the access and the availability of abortion services directly reduce abortion demand. This study examines whether these laws also have a spillover effect on abortion demand due to the increase in the price of an abortion that may result from the higher costs imposed on abortion providers as a result of complying with these laws. The empirical results find that the enforcement of a parental notification law and a mandatory counseling law causes an increase in the price charged by abortion providers by over 13% and 9%, respectively. Based on previous estimates of the price elasticity of abortion demand, this implies that the spillover effect of a parental notification law and a mandatory counseling law is to reduce the demand for abortion, through their increase on the price of an abortion, by between 9.4% and 13.6% for a parental notification law and between 6.5% and 9.4% for a mandatory counseling law.

Marshall H. MedoffEmail: