The Effect OF Plan B on Teen Abortions: Evidence from the 2006 FDA Ruling

The 2006 FDA ruling made Plan B, the popular brand of emergency contraception (EC), available without a doctor's prescription to women 18 and older; women younger than 18 still have to produce a doctor's prescription for the drug. We hypothesize that since unplanned pregnancies are more likely to be terminated, an increase in the availability of EC may lead to a decrease in the abortion rate among women affected by the ruling. Therefore, in the absence of a change in the sexual risk taking, we expect to observe a decline in the abortion rate among women aged 18 and 19 after 2006, and expect no change in the abortion rate for women aged 15 and 16. We use the difference-in-difference methodology on the age-by-year-by-state abortion data to test this hypothesis. In contrast to the related literature, we find a moderate reduction in abortion rates among women age 18 and 19 in years after 2006 in states that were affected by the change, compared to changes in the control group in the same states. Yet, we do not observe a similar large change in abortion rates among women age 20-24.