State reproductive policies and adolescent pregnancy resolution: the case of parental involvement laws.

State laws regulating abortion have increased markedly in the wake of recent Supreme Court decisions. We test whether laws that require minors to notify or obtain consent from a parent before receiving an abortion affect the likelihood that a pregnancy will be terminated. We use individual data on births and abortions from three southern states, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. We find that South Carolina's parent consent statute is associated with a decline of 10 percentage points in the probability of abortion among non-black minors of 16 years of age. We find no effect for any other age or racial group and conclude that the impact of parental involvement laws on the pregnancy resolution of minors is not large.