Revisiting the Effects of Abortion Legalization on the Incidence of Sexually-Transmitted Diseases
The ability to terminate unwanted pregnancies may lead to increased levels of unprotected sexual activity. Following this intuition, we revisit the consequences of abortion legalization on the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the United States. In a first investigation of this possible relationship Klick_Stratmann (2003} found that abortion legalization led to an increase in STDs. While we are able to replicate the original findings of Klick and Stratmann, we find that many of their conclusions do not survive a series of robustness checks that are motivated, for the most part, by post-2003 developments of the literature. These include: a) the clustering of standard errors, b) revisions to the coding of access to the birth control pill and of abortion legalization, and c) the use of recently proposed difference-in-difference estimators in settings with staggered policy adoption that allow for treatment effect heterogeneity across groups and dynamic treatment effects that may grow or dissipate over time.