Have Increasing Clinic Regulations Restricted Women’s Access to a Safe Abortion?

Abstract

Abstract: As the number of annual abortions in the United States has declined, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has recently claimed that growing state regulations have reduced the availability of safe abortions. The NAS presents three claims, each of which is contradicted by multiple sources of evidence. First, the NAS claims that increased regulations have led to reduced abortion access as clinics have closed. But the dropping abortion rate preceded increased clinic regulations; and the distance women travel to obtain an abortion has been dropping, not rising.

Second, regulations that encourage greater deliberation in the choice to have an abortion do not affect abortion supply, as the NAS claims, but do appropriately reduce abortion demand. Third, the NAS claim that waiting period regulations reduce safety by delaying the procedure ignores multiple studies of the question that found reduced early abortions but no evidence of delay in abortion timing due to the brief waiting periods stipulated by regulations. Declining annual abortions are not due to regulations, but to a broad social trend among young women away from resort to abortion, which has been noted by cultural commentators but is unacknowledged by the NAS.

Keywords: abortion, abortion safety, abortion regulations

JEL Classification: I18