IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/don/donwpa/119.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Gynecologists' Conscientious Objection on Access to Abortion in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Tommaso Autorino
  • Francesco Mattioli
  • Letizia Mencarini

Abstract

Abortion in Italy is free of charge and legal in a broad set of circumstances, but 71% of gynecologists refuse to perform abortions for reasons of conscientious objection. We assess whether the diverse prevalence of conscientious objection across Italian regions is linked to the inter-regional mobility of women seeking an abortion and to differences in terms of waiting time preceding the operation. Focusing on the period between 2002 and 2016, we perform a panel data analysis at the regional level, showing that a higher prevalence of objecting professionals is associated to a higher share of women having an abortion outside the region and to longer waiting times. Furthermore, using microdata on over one million abortions recorded in Italy in the same period, we find that conscientious objection is a significant driver of the individual decision of having an abortion out of the region of residence. All the models account for economic and demographic characteristics of regions, and for other possible determinants of inter-regional mobility. Overall, results suggest that conscientious objection can limit access to abortion at the local level.

Suggested Citation

  • Tommaso Autorino & Francesco Mattioli & Letizia Mencarini, 2018. "The Impact of Gynecologists' Conscientious Objection on Access to Abortion in Italy," Working Papers 119, "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi.
    • Handle: RePEc:don:donwpa:119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: ftp://ftp.dondena.unibocconi.it/WorkingPapers/Dondena_WP119.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert W. Brown & R. Todd Jewell & Jeffrey J. Rous, 2001. "Provider Availability, Race, and Abortion Demand," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(3), pages 656-671, January.
    2. Cook, Philip J. & Parnell, Allan M. & Moore, Michael J. & Pagnini, Deanna, 1999. "The effects of short-term variation in abortion funding on pregnancy outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 241-257, April.
    3. Robert W. Brown & R. Todd Jewell, 1996. "The Impact Of Provider Availability On Abortion Demand," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 14(2), pages 95-106, April.
    4. Blank, Rebecca M. & George, Christine C. & London, Rebecca A., 1996. "State abortion rates the impact of policies, providers, politics, demographics, and economic environment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 513-553, October.
    5. Deyak, Timothy A & Smith, V Kerry, 1976. "The Economic Value of Statute Reform: The Case of Liberalized Abortion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(1), pages 83-99, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. de Londras, Fiona & Cleeve, Amanda & Rodriguez, Maria I. & Farrell, Alana & Furgalska, Magdalena & Lavelanet, Antonella F., 2023. "The Impact of ‘conscientious objection’ on abortion-related outcomes: A synthesis of legal and health evidence," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Silvie Colman & Theodore J. Joyce, "undated". "Regulating Abortion: Impact on Patients and Providers in Texas," Mathematica Policy Research Reports db01943e8d23431ca26fe3eaf, Mathematica Policy Research.
    2. Silvie Colman & Ted Joyce, 2011. "Regulating abortion: Impact on patients and providers in Texas," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 775-797, September.
    3. Christopher Balding, 2010. "A Modest Proposal for a Two‐Sided Market Clearing Institution under Asymmetric Supply Constraints with Skewed Pricing: The Market for Adoption and Abortion in the United States," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(6), pages 1059-1080, December.
    4. repec:mpr:mprres:6548 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Theodore J. Joyce & Ruoding Tan & Yuxiu Zhang, 2012. "Back to the Future? Abortion Before & After Roe," NBER Working Papers 18338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Bisakha Sen, 2003. "A preliminary investigation of the effects of restrictions on Medicaid funding for abortions on female STD rates," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(6), pages 453-464, June.
    7. Ted Joyce & Robert Kaestner & Sanders Korenman & Stanley Henshaw, 2004. "Family Cap Provisions and Changes in Births and Abortions," NBER Working Papers 10214, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Clarke, Damian, 2023. "The Economics of Abortion Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 16395, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Inna Cintina, 2013. "Behind-the-counter, but Over-the-border? The Assessment of the Geographical Spillover Effect of Increased Access to Emergency Contraception," Working Papers 2013-6R, University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, University of Hawaii at Manoa, revised May 2014.
    10. António Melo, 2024. "Do all roads lead to the same destination? Proximity to abortion providers, abortions, and their conditions in Portugal," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(4), pages 1-31, December.
    11. Annette Hofmann & Julia K. Neumann & Peter Zweifel, 2019. "Risky health decisions under regulatory constraints: Abortion tourism in Switzerland," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 203-237, December.
    12. Bisakha Sen, 2007. "State Abortion Restrictions and Child Fatal‐Injury: An Exploratory Study," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(3), pages 553-574, January.
    13. Jones, Kelly M. & Pineda-Torres, Mayra, 2024. "TRAP’d Teens: Impacts of abortion provider regulations on fertility & education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    14. repec:hae:wpaper:2013-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Inna Cintina, 2013. "Behind-the-counter, but Over-the-border? The Assessment of the Spillover Effect of Increased Availability of Emergency Contraception in Washington on Neighboring States," Working Papers 201308, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    16. Bosede Awoyemi & Jacob Novignon, 2014. "Demand for abortion and post abortion care in Ibadan, Nigeria," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 1-9, December.
    17. Medoff, Marshall H., 2003. "The impact of anti-abortion activities on state abortion rates," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 265-282, July.
    18. Paton, David, 2002. "The economics of family planning and underage conceptions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 207-225, March.
    19. Phillip B. Levine & Douglas Staiger, 2002. "Abortion as Insurance," NBER Working Papers 8813, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Phillip B. Levine, 2002. "The Impact of Social Policy and Economic Activity Throughout the Fertility Decision Tree," NBER Working Papers 9021, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Fidel Gonzalez & Troy Quast & Alex Venanzi, 2020. "Factors associated with the timing of abortions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 223-233, February.
    22. Sen, Bisakha, 2003. "An indirect test for whether restricting Medicaid funding for abortion increases pregnancy-avoidance behavior," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 155-163, November.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:don:donwpa:119. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Amy Johnson (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.dondena.unibocconi.it/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.