Speaker
AP Pittman
Graduate Student, Sociology
Duke University
Abstract
Despite the documented negative effects on women's mental health of abortion restrictions, little research to date has addressed the inverse process: does enacting protections to abortion improve population mental health? The timing of the passage of the citizen-initiated constitutional amendment in Ohio provides a unique opportunity to answer this question. Ohio's amendment passed in the November 2023 general election. Unlike abortion protection ballot measures in other states, this did not occur simultaneously with a major midterm or presidential election, which would add noise to any estimates of mental health taken at that time. The present study uses weighted difference-in-differences methodology to estimate the impact of Ohio's constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights on women's mental health, using Household Pulse Survey data from 2023 and 2024.