The Latin American and Caribbean adolescent fertility rates are among the highest in the world: about 1.7 million children are born to teen mothers every year, and most of them are declared unintended pregnancies. The region also has the highest rate of unintended pregnancy of any world region, and nearly half of such pregnancies end in abortion. However, fewer than 18 percent of the region's women live in countries where abortion is broadly legal. This paper estimates the causal effect of abortion legalization on adolescent fertility in Uruguay using official data on legal abortions provided after the 2012 reform. We employed a difference-in-differences strategy, classifying states by whether they are responsive or unresponsive to the reform. The results suggest that abortion reform had a negative impact on the adolescent birth rate by 2.5–2.8 births per thousand adolescents aged 15–19 (a 4 percent decrease from the preintervention average). Additionally, we exploited variation in reform implementation intensity through the estimation of fixed-effect linear regression models and found consistent results. Our findings are robust to controlling for a concurrent large-scale program of contraceptive implants. We conclude that legislation aimed at enhancing rights and reducing avoidable deaths and complications from unsafe abortions may also have spillover effects that help reduce adolescent fertility.

中文翻译：

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乌拉圭的堕胎合法化：对青少年生育能力的影响

拉丁美洲和加勒比地区的青少年生育率是世界上最高的：每年约有 170 万孩子由青少年母亲所生，其中大多数被宣布为意外怀孕。该地区的意外怀孕率也是世界上最高的，近一半的此类怀孕以流产告终。然而，该地区不到 18% 的女性生活在堕胎普遍合法的国家。本文使用 2012 年改革后提供的合法堕胎官方数据估计了堕胎合法化对乌拉圭青少年生育率的因果影响。我们采用了差异中的差异策略，根据对改革的响应或不响应来对各州进行分类。结果表明，堕胎改革对青少年生育率产生了 2.5-2 的负面影响。每千名 15-19 岁青少年生育 8 人（比干预前的平均水平下降 4%）。此外，我们通过对固定效应线性回归模型的估计，利用了改革实施强度的变化，并发现了一致的结果。我们的研究结果对于控制同时进行的大规模避孕植入计划是稳健的。我们得出结论，旨在增强权利和减少不安全堕胎造成的可避免死亡和并发症的立法也可能产生有助于降低青少年生育能力的溢出效应。我们的研究结果对于控制同时进行的大规模避孕植入计划是稳健的。我们得出结论，旨在增强权利和减少不安全堕胎造成的可避免死亡和并发症的立法也可能产生有助于降低青少年生育能力的溢出效应。我们的研究结果对于控制同时进行的大规模避孕植入计划是稳健的。我们得出结论，旨在增强权利和减少不安全堕胎造成的可避免死亡和并发症的立法也可能产生有助于降低青少年生育能力的溢出效应。