Effect of abortion cost on fertility
The availability and cost of abortion has been considered an important factor influencing female fertility. This page discusses some channels of influence, and how one might tease apart those channels of influence.
Broad description of channels of influence
Story where the availability or cost reduction in abortion reduces the female's completed fertility by one
The most plausible story for this is that all the following happen:
| Condition | What happens if the condition is violated? |
|---|---|
| The female was not planning to have any additional children at the time she got pregnant. | If the female was anyway planning to have more children, then the availability or lack thereof of abortion may simply substitute between present kids and future kids rather than affecting her completed fertility. |
| The female's having a pregnancy that she wishes to abort was not affected by the availability or cost of abortion | It may well be possible that the availability of abortion causes females to have more unprotected (or poorly protected) sex than they otherwise might, and therefore, the fetuses they end up aborting are fetuses they would not have had in the first place had the law been stricter or the costs higher. |
Story where the availability or cost reduction in abortion has no effect on the female's completed fertility
This can happen if one of these conditions hold:
- Females have unintended pregnanices only in circumstances where they are anyway considering having more children, and if they do have unintended pregnancies that they do not abort, they use these kids to substitute against future planned kids.
- All the additional pregnancies that a female might abort under increased availability or cost reduction in abortion are pregnancies the female would have been able to avoid in the first place under reduced availability or higher abortion cost.
- All unintended pregnancies fall in one of the above two categories.
Real-world story: mixed
The situation in the real world is mixed: some pregnancies now do substitute for later pregnancies, but not always (additionally, women who abort, planning to have kids later, may end up not being able to have kids later). Also, lower costs of abortion can lead to an increase in the prevalence of unprotected (or poorly protected) sex. (Here, prevalence is being judged in absolute terms, not relative to well-protected sex). Teasing out these effects can be a difficult task.