Abortion Access and Risky Sex Among Teens: Parental Involvement Laws and Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Vol. 24, No. 1, p. 2, 2008
FSU College of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 175
20 Pages Posted: 4 Oct 2005 Last revised: 29 Jan 2010
There are 2 versions of this paper
Abortion Access and Risky Sex Among Teens: Parental Involvement Laws and Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Abortion Access and Risky Sex Among Teens: Parental Involvement Laws and Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Abstract
Laws requiring minors to seek parental consent or to notify a parent prior to obtaining an abortion raise the cost of risky sex for teenagers. Assuming choices to engage in risky sex are made rationally, parental involvement laws should lead to less risky sex among teens, either because of a reduction of sexual activity altogether or because teens will be more fastidious in the use of birth control ex ante. Using gonorrhea rates among older women to control for unobserved heterogeneity across states, our results indicate that the enactment of parental involvement laws significantly reduces risky sexual activity among teenage girls. We estimate reductions in gonorrhea rates of 20 percent for Hispanics and 12 percent for whites. While we find a relatively small reduction in rates for black girls, it is not statistically significant. We speculate that the racial heterogeneity has to do with differences in family structure across races.
Keywords: Gonorrhea, Pregnancy, STD, Teenagers, Sex, Abortion, Illegitimacy, Birth Rates
JEL Classification: I12, I18, J12, J13, K00, K32, Z13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women's Career and Marriage Decisions
By Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz
-
The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime
By John J. Donohue and Steven D. Levitt
-
The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime
By John J. Donohue and Steven D. Levitt
-
Roe V. Wade and American Fertility
By Phillip B. Levine, Douglas Staiger, ...
-
After the Epidemic: Recent Trends in Youth Violence in the United States
By Philip J. Cook and John H. Laub
-
Abortion Legalization and Child Living Circumstances: Who is the "Marginal Child?"
By Jonathan Gruber, Phillip B. Levine, ...
-
Unobservables, Pregnancy Resolutions, and Birthweight Production Functions in New York City
By Michael Grossman and Theodore Joyce
-
Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of the 1970 State Abortion Reforms