OXFORD, England — A new study finds that state laws requiring parental involvement in the pregnancy decisions of teen girls reduce risky sexual behavior. The study, conducted by Jonathan Klick, a law professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee, and Thomas Stratmann, a professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., will be published in an upcoming edition of The Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, which is published by Oxford University Press.
Girls prefer not admitting to parents that they’ve been engaged in sexual activity, Klick said, so laws that require a parent to be informed their daughter is considering abortion are a deterrent.
“Incentives matter … [T]hey matter even among teenagers, who are conventionally thought to be short-sighted,” he said. “If the expected costs of risky sex are raised, teens will substitute less risky activities such as protected sex or abstinence.”
The two found that in states where such laws were in effect, the rate of sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea dropped 20 percent among Hispanic girls and 12 percent among Caucasian girls.
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