Changes in Abortion Access in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This session contains four economics papers on abortion, spanning policy variation over the past 60 years in the U.S., including pre-Roe v. Wade legalization, the increasingly restrictive environment in the 2000s and 2010s, and the post Dobbs lanscape. The papers study the multigenerational health impacts of early-life exposure to legalized abortion, the effects of changes in abortion access during the era of targeted restrictions of abortion providers (TRAP laws), the impact of federal abortion funding bans on fertility and mortality, and the impact of clinical closures from TRAP laws and funding cuts in Texas on economic hardship and crime. These results are crucial to designed optimal policy in the ever changing abortion landscape in the United States.

Policy Area

• Health Policy

Secondary Policy Area

• Family and Child Policy

Chair

• Erdal Tekin, American University

Discussants

• Caitlin Knowles Myers, Middlebury College

• Joanna Lahey, Texas A&M University

Organizer

• David Slusky, University of Kansas

Individual Presentations

• Driving the Distance: How Abortion Access Affects Infant and Maternal Health - Presenting Author: Lilly Springer, University of Kansas

• The Consequences of Federal Abortion Funding Bans - Presenting Author: Nikita Dhingra, Georgia State University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Lauren Velasco, Georgia State University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Mayra Belinda Pineda-Torres, Texas A&M University

• Abortion, Economic Hardship, and Crime - Presenting Author: Erkmen Aslim, University of Vermont