Research

Gardner, Graham. "The Maternal and Infant Health Consequences of Restricted Access to Abortion in the US" [Job Market Paper]

"Since the recent US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, people across the country have experienced large sudden changes in their access to abortion care. In this paper, I look to the history of abortion access in the United States to inform predictions for this new future. I study the effects of targeted regulations on abortion providers (TRAP laws) on a variety of maternal and infant health outcomes, using variation in the timing of policy adoption across states and a direct measure of the distance to an abortion provider. I implement difference-in-differences techniques across outcomes from restricted-use microdata on the universe of US births and national survey data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. I find that TRAP laws lead to increased rates of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy by 8-15% and provide suggestive evidence that these health effects may not be isolated to the period surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. Additionally, I find evidence that TRAP laws widen existing disparities in adverse infant health outcomes across parental race and education. These results demonstrate the potentially wide-ranging health effects of restricting access to abortion."

Gardner, Graham. "Notification vs Consent: The Differential Effects of Parental Involvement Laws on Teen Abortion" [working paper here] 

"US state legislation requiring parental involvement in the abortion decision of a minor has grown in prevalence since its origin in the 1970s. Today, 36 states impose a parental involvement requirement on their residents below the age of 18. These laws come in two primary categories: parental notification and parental consent. Though much research estimates the effects of these policies, limited evidence exists regarding any differential impact between parental notification and parental consent. This paper uses the synthetic control method to determine if the increased marginal cost of an abortion imposed by a parental consent statute affects the abortion rate and birth rate for minors relative to parental notification. Results indicate no evidence of a marginal effect of parental consent laws on the abortion/birth rate of minors overall, suggesting that the additional cost of a parental consent law may be small." 

Crowe, Brad, Graham Gardner, and Cara Haughey. "The Effect of Restricted Abortion Access on IUDs, Contraceptive Implants, and Vasectomies: Evidence from Texas" [working paper here]

"Contraception and abortion both result in fertility reductions, but identifying whether or not they are substitutes remains an open question. Using administrative outpatient records from Texas, we exploit the passage of a regulation on abortion providers to identify the effects of restricted abortion access on the timing and take-up of long-acting, reversible contraceptives (LARC) and vasectomies using an event study design. We find evidence that expectations of limited abortion access significantly increase the take-up of IUDs, with no substantial evidence of an effect for the incidence of implants or vasectomies. These findings support the hypothesis that abortion and contraception are substitutes, but the lack of evidence to indicate an effect of the policy on vasectomies suggests that partners may not internalize the cost of abortion in their contraceptive choices"