THE IMPACT OF BEING DENIED A WANTED ABORTION ON WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN

This paper examines the impact of denying a wanted abortion on women and children in Colombia using high-quality administrative microdata and credibly exogenous variation in abortion access. Women can seek legal abortions through a tutela, with cases randomly assigned to judges. Female judges are 20 p.p. (32%) less likely to deny abortion cases than male judges, and we use the judge's sex as an instrument for abortion denial. Denial of a wanted abortion has both immediate and lasting effects. It increases a woman's risk of death by 2.5 p.p within nine months, mainly due to unsafe abortion procedures, and raises the likelihood of carrying the pregnancy to term by 31 p.p. Tracking outcomes up to 15 years later, we find that women denied an abortion experience more health issues, lower educational attainment, reduced labor-force participation, and higher rates of single motherhood, poverty, and reliance on government assistance. Existing children, born before their mother sought an abortion, are less likely to attend school and more likely to work.