Thursday, July 16, 2009

Restricting Medicaid Funding for Abortions Lowers Abortion Rates

A new literature review is out by abortion-choice research groups: “Restrictions on Medicaid Funding for Abortions: A Literature Review,” by the Guttmacher Institute and Ibis Reproductive Health.

Michael New summarizes:
Overall, the results indicate that there is a very strong consensus among both public-health researchers and economists that public funding restrictions lower abortion rates. The Guttmacher literature review contains citations to 20 academic studies documenting this. These studies analyze data from a range of sources including surveys and aggregate data from the federal, state, and local level. Conversely, Guttmacher identifies only about four studies which show that the effects of public-funding restrictions are inconclusive.
Read his whole post.