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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (11634)	6/18/2004 9:34:54 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

..equating the propensity to have abortions, to less children Abortion does seem to have an effect on total fertility, however. And the effect on total fertility rates is larger for some groups in US society than for others. Roe v Wade and American fertility PB Levine, D Staiger, TJ Kane and DJ Zimmerman Department of Economics, Wellesley College, MA 02181, USA. plevine@wellesley.edu OBJECTIVES: This article examines the effect of abortion legalization on fertility rates in the United States. METHODS: Fertility rates were compared over time between states that varied in the timing of abortion legalization. RESULTS: States legalizing abortion experienced a 4% decline in fertility relative to states where the legal status of abortion was unchanged. The relative reductions in births to teens, women more than 35 years of age, non-White women, and unmarried women were considerably larger. If women did not travel between states to obtain an abortion, the estimated impact of abortion legalization on birth rates would be about 11%. CONCLUSIONS: A complete recriminalization of abortion nationwide could result in 440,000 additional births per year. A reversal of the Roe v Wade decision leaving abortion legal in some states would substantially limit this impact because of the extent of travel between states. ajph.org What, then, are the overall effects of abortion legalization and funding on total fertility rates? For whites, all the effects are small (see the figure). The white TFR where abortion is legal and Medicaid funding for the procedure available is estimated to be 1.81. Ending Medicaid funding would increase the TFR for whites by 2 percent. Klerman estimates that making abortion illegal would increase white fertility by an additional 3 percent, still below replacement levels. For blacks, the effects are larger. The black TFR where abortion is legal and Medicaid funding for the procedure available is estimated to be 2.18. Ending Medicaid funding would increase black fertility by 10 percent. Making abortion illegal would increase the black TFR by another 5 percent. rand.org