Rational Choice Theory On Abortion

The study is anchored on the theory about an argue that abortion is an ex postbirth control method that provides sexually active women (at risk of a pregnancy) insurance in the event of an unintended pregnancy. The option to have an abortion of an unintended pregnancy lowers the cost to women of engaging in risky (noncontracepted) sexual activity. As the cost of an abortion increases, due to the enforcement of restrictive abortion laws, the cost of this unintended pregnancy insurance policy increases, which may induce women to alter their risky sexual behavior in ways that reduce the likelihood of an unintended pregnancy. In response to these restrictive abortion laws, women may change their frequency of unprotected sexual

Rational choice theory is a framework for understanding and modeling social behavior. Kane and Staiger’s model is predicated on the assumption that women make rational decisions about sexual activity, contraceptive usage, and pregnancy resolution based on a comparison of the respective costs and benefits of each alternative. One of the costs of risky sexual activity is an unintended pregnancy. Women choose the optimal alternative depending on their values and the information they have available to them (i.e., make an economically rational decision). The underlying premise of rational choice theory is that women make choices that are rewarding to them and avoid those that are not. In other words, rational choice theory expects women of childbearing age to respond to incentives. This framework has been applied to the risky sexual activity of childbearing women and the empirical results are generally supportive of the rational choice theoretical approach (a complete review is available in [3, 5,

Nevertheless, the economic model of risky sexual activity provides a useful and parsimonious means to theoretically link restrictive abortion laws and risky sexual activity. A focus on economic cost (restrictive abortion laws) does not imply that social, cultural, attitudinal, family, or community factors do not influence a woman’s risky sexual activity. Rather, this approach suggests that restrictive abortion laws may have an independent effect on women’s risky sexual activity. In particular, an economic rational choice model of women’s risky sexual activity suggests that restrictive abortion laws may affect the decisions women make regarding risky sexual activity and contraception in a predictable