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Abortion laws and women’s health

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  • Clarke, Damian
  • Mühlrad, Hanna

Abstract

We examine the impact of progressive and regressive abortion legislation on women's health in Mexico. Following a 2007 reform in the Federal District of Mexico which decriminalised and subsidised early-term elective abortion, multiple other Mexican states increased sanctions on illegal abortion. We observe that the original legalisation resulted in a sharp decline in maternal morbidity, particularly morbidity due to haemorrhage early in pregnancy. We observe small or null impacts on women's health from increasing sanctions on illegal abortion. These results quantify the considerable improvements in non-mortal health outcomes flowing from legal access to abortion.

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  • Clarke, Damian & Mühlrad, Hanna, 2021. "Abortion laws and women’s health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:76:y:2021:i:c:s0167629620310596
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2020.102413
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Clarke, Damian & Salinas, Viviana, 2020. "Access to The Emergency Contraceptive Pill Improves Women's Health: Evidence from Chile," IZA Discussion Papers 13134, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Ramm, Alejandra & Casas, Lidia & Correa, Sara & Baba, C. Finley & Biggs, M. Antonia, 2020. "“Obviously there is a conflict between confidentiality and what you are required to do by law”: Chilean university faculty and student perspectives on reporting unlawful abortions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 261(C).
    3. Fernanda Marquez-Padilla & Biani Saavedra, 2022. "The unintended effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders on abortions," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(1), pages 269-305, January.
    4. Lena Janys & Bettina Siflinger, 2021. "Mental Health and Abortions among Young Women: Time-Varying Unobserved Heterogeneity, Health Behaviors, and Risky Decisions," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 083, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    5. Clarke, Damian & Mühlrad, Hanna, 2021. "Abortion laws and women’s health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    6. Catia Nicodemo & Sonia Oreffice & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2022. "Correlates of repeat abortions and their spacing: Evidence from registry data in Spain," Papers 2208.05567, arXiv.org, revised May 2023.
    7. Lena Janys & Bettina Siflinger, 2021. "Mental Health and Abortions among Young Women: Time-varying Unobserved Heterogeneity, Health Behaviors, and Risky Decisions," Papers 2103.12159, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Abortion; Maternal morbidity; Maternal mortality; Health care provision; Political economy; Legislative reform;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • K38 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Human Rights Law; Gender Law; Animal Rights Law
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare

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