While considerable research exists on whether abortion restrictions affect adolescents’ demand for abortions, less work has been done about whether such restrictions deter pregnancy-risk behavior among adolescents. This paper uses data from the first round of the NLSY97 to investigate the effects of two abortion restrictions -- unavailability of Medicaid funding and laws requiring parental involvement -- on the frequency of sexual activity among (unmarried) adolescent girls. Results from zero-inflated negative binomial models indicate that neither restriction has significant effects on the frequency of sexual activity per se or on the frequency of non-contracepted sexual activity.
