U.S. abortion policy and fertility.

Abstract

As measured by the total fertility rate (TFR), fertility in the United States fell sharply beginning in the early 1960’s, dropping to below the replacement level in 1972, and to well below the replacement level in the late 1970’s. Since then, the TFR has hovered below replacement level. Also in the early 1970’s, several states, followed by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, legalized abortion. This paper explores whether there is a connection between changes in abortion policy and U.S. fertility. Since the initial legislation legalizing abortion, government abortion policies continue to change, with government policies, in general, becoming less sympathetic to abortion. This shift is most notable in states’ decisions to end federal funding for abortions through Medicaid in the late 1970’s and, most recently, in some of the provisions of the federal 1996 welfare-reform legislation. Specifically, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act of 1996 (PROWRA) included ‘‘illegitimacy bonuses’’ for the five states that ‘‘are most successful in reducing the number of out-of-wedlock births while decreasing abortion rates’’ (Committee on Ways and Means, 1996). Proposals to further restrict abortion, as well as proposals to liberalize abortion, continue to receive active consideration. Despite large numbers of abortions (more than one for every three live births) the effect of abortion policy on the number of children born is not clear. In the parallel debate about the oral contraceptive, some claimed that the new contraceptive technology caused the decline in fertility in the mid-1960’s. Others claimed that the oral contraceptive simply made the decline less costly for couples. In the