The Relationship Between State Abortion Policies and Abortion Providers

Abstract

This study empirically examines whether restrictive state abortion laws have an impact on the number of abortion providers over the period 1982-2005. The empirical results find that medicaid funding restrictions, parental involvement laws and targeted regulation of abortion providers (TRAP laws) annual licensing fees significantly deter physicians or organizations from becoming or remaining abortion providers. The numerical impact of a Medicaid funding restriction, parental involvement law and a TRAP licensing fee is to reduce the number of abortion providers per 100,000 pregnancies by 12.8, 19.6 and 15.5, respectively, as compared to states without these restrictive abortion laws. The empirical results also show that parental notification laws have a significantly larger negative impact on the number of abortion providers than parental consent laws. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009.