Ítem
Acceso Abierto

When Partial Liberalization Saves Lives: The Impact of Colombia's 2006 Abortion Reform on Neonatal Health

Mostrar el registro sencillo de la publicación
dc.contributor.gruplacGrupo de investigaciones. Facultad de Economía. Universidad del Rosario
dc.creatorCortés Cortés, Darwin
dc.creatorJiménez, Clara
dc.creatorLara, Ivonne
dc.creatorRodríguez Lesmes, Paul Andrés
dc.creatorTorres, Pilar
dc.date.accessioned2026-01-30T19:10:59Z
dc.date.available2026-01-30T19:10:59Z
dc.date.created2026-01-22
dc.date.issued2026-01-23
dc.descriptionEste artículo examina los efectos de la liberalización del aborto sobre los resultados de salud neonatal en un contexto de país de ingreso medio. Aprovechamos el fallo de la Corte Constitucional de Colombia de 2006 (C-355), que despenalizó parcialmente el aborto en tres circunstancias —riesgo para la salud de la madre, inviabilidad fetal y embarazos resultantes de violencia sexual— como un cuasi experimento natural. Utilizando un diseño de diferencias en diferencias con datos administrativos de todos los nacidos vivos, estimamos el impacto causal de esta reforma sobre indicadores clave de salud neonatal, incluyendo el peso al nacer, la edad gestacional y los puntajes APGAR. Encontramos que la liberalización parcial condujo a mejoras significativas en la salud de los recién nacidos, particularmente entre madres más jóvenes y socialmente vulnerables. Los resultados sugieren que la ampliación del acceso legal al aborto redujo la incidencia de embarazos de alto riesgo y mejoró la composición de los nacimientos, en consonancia con mecanismos de selección materna observados en Estados Unidos y otros contextos de altos ingresos. Estos efectos son robustos a especificaciones alternativas y se concentran en áreas con mayor disponibilidad hospitalaria, lo que indica que la capacidad institucional medió los beneficios en salud de la reforma. Nuestros hallazgos contribuyen a la evidencia global de que la liberalización de las leyes sobre el aborto puede mejorar tanto la salud materna como la neonatal, incluso cuando las reformas son parciales y se implementan en sistemas de salud con restricciones. Asimismo, destacan que el acceso legal, combinado con una provisión adecuada de servicios, puede generar mejoras medibles a nivel poblacional en la supervivencia neonatal y en la equidad en salud reproductiva.
dc.description.abstractThis paper examines the effects of abortion liberalization on newborn health outcomes in a middle-income country context. We exploit Colombia’s 2006 Constitutional Court ruling (C-355), which partially decriminalized abortion in three circumstances: risk to the mother’s health, fetal inviability, and pregnancies resulting from sexual violence, as a quasi-natural experiment. Using a difference-in-differences design with administrative data on all live births, we estimate the causal impact of this reform on key neonatal health indicators, including birth weight, gestational age, and APGAR scores. We find that the partial liberalization led to significant improvements in newborn health, particularly among younger and socially vulnerable mothers. The results suggest that expanded legal access to abortion reduced the incidence of high-risk pregnancies and improved the composition of births, consistent with maternal selection mechanisms observed in the United States and other high-income settings. These effects are robust to alternative specifications and concentrated in areas with greater hospital availability, indicating that institutional capacity mediated the reform’s health benefits. Our findings contribute to the global evidence that liberalizing abortion laws can improve both maternal and neonatal health, even when reforms are partial and implemented within constrained health systems. They highlight that legal access, combined with adequate service delivery, can yield measurable population-level gains in newborn survival and equity in reproductive health.
dc.format.extent26 pp
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.48713/10336_47411
dc.identifier.urihttps://repository.urosario.edu.co/handle/10336/47411
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherUniversidad del Rosario
dc.publisher.departmentFacultad de Economía
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International*
dc.rights.accesRightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights.accesoAbierto (Texto Completo)
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/*
dc.source.bibliographicCitationAdkins, S., N. Talmor, T. Dechen, M. White, A. Singh, R. Molina, C. Zera, J. Stevens, and A. O’Donoghue (2025): “Association of restricted abortion access with maternal and infant health by maternal nativity: A difference-in-differences analysis,” BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationAllotey, P., S. Ravindran, and V. Sathivelu (2020): “Trends in abortion policies in low- and middle-income countries,” Annual Review of Public Health, 41, 505–520.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationAnanat, E. O., J. Gruber, P. Levine, and D. Staiger (2009): “Abortion and selection,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 91, 124–136.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationAntón, J.-I., Z. Ferre, and P. Triunfo (2022): “The Impact of Abortion Legalisation on Birth Outcomes in Uruguay,” Health Economics, 31, 1867–1888.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationArroyave, F. (2018): “A non-systematic bibliographical review: Barriers and facilitators for access to legal abortion in low and middle income countries,” Perceptions in Reproductive Medicine, 2, 1–13.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationCarabali, M., N. Austin, N. King, and J. Kaufman (2018): “The Zika epidemic and abortion in Latin America: a scoping review,” Global Health Research and Policy, 3, 1–9.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationClarke, D. and H. Mühlrad (2020): “Abortion laws and women’s health,” Journal of Health Economics.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationurrie, J., L. Nixon, and N. Cole (1996): “Restrictions on Medicaid Funding of Abortion: Effects on Birth Weight and Pregnancy Resolutions,” Journal of Human Resources, 31, 159–188.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationGalli, B. (2020): “Challenges and opportunities for access to legal and safe abortion in Latin America based on the scenarios in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay,” Cadernos de Saúde Pública, 36, e00168419.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationGemmill, A., C. Margerison, E. Stuart, and S. Bell (2024): “Infant deaths after Texas’ 2021 ban on abortion in early pregnancy,” JAMA Pediatrics.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationGialdini, C., A. Michel, M. Romero, S. Ramos, G. Carroli, B. Carroli, R. De León, V. Ortiz, and A. Lavelanet (2024): “Multicountry research on comprehensive abortion policy implementation in Latin America: a mixed-methods study protocol,” BMJ Open, 14.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationGonzález, L., S. Jiménez-Martín, N. Nollenberger, and J. V. Castello (2025): “The Effect of Access to Legal Abortion on Fertility, Marriage, and Long-Term Outcomes for Women,” The Economic Journal, ueaf054.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationGruber, J., P. B. Levine, and D. Staiger (1999): “Abortion Legalization and Child Living Circumstances: Who is the "Marginal Child"?” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114, 263–291.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationHaas-Wilson, D. (1996): “The Impact of State Abortion Restrictions on Minors’ Demand for Abortions,” Journal of Human Resources, 31, 140–158.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationHall, C., J. Daire, and D. Hendrie (2023): “A scoping review considering the processes involved in changing abortion laws in low- and middle-income countries,” Health Policy and Planning.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationIshola, F., B. McKinnon, S. Yang, and A. Nandi (2025): “Neonatal mortality and contracep- tive utilization following abortion restriction in the Dominican Republic: A difference- in-differences analysis,” Social Science & Medicine, 372, 117969.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationIshola, F., C. Rosario, S. Griffin, C. Khosa, and A. Nandi (2024): “Abortion legal reform and neonatal mortality in Mozambique,” Maternal and Child Health Journal.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationIshola, F., U. Ukah, B. Alli, and A. Nandi (2021): “Impact of abortion law reforms on health services and health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review,” Health Policy and Planning.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationJones, K. and M. Pineda-Torres (2021): “Adolescents TRAP’d: Impacts of Targeted Regula- tion of Abortion Providers on Teen Fertility and Education,” Journal of Human Resources.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationJoyce, T. (1987): “The impact of induced abortion on black and white birth outcomes in the United States,” Demography, 24, 229–244.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationKarletsos, D., C. Stoecker, D. Vilda, K. Theall, and M. Wallace (2021): “Association of state gestational age limit abortion laws with infant mortality,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationMalta, M., S. Wells, S. Legrand, M. Seixas, A. Baptista, C. da Silva, C. Kalume, and K. Whetten (2019): “Abortion in Brazil: the case for women’s rights, lives, and choices,” The Lancet Public Health, 4, e552.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationMarthias, T., K. Anindya, N. Saputri, L. Putri, R. Atun, and J.-K. Lee (2025): “Effective coverage for reproductive, maternal, and newborn health: an analysis of geographical 25 and socioeconomic inequalities in 39 low- and middle-income countries,” BMJ Global Health, 10.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationMyers, C. K. (2017): “The power of abortion policy: Reexamining the effects of young women’s access to reproductive control,” Journal of Political Economy, 125, 2178–2224.
dc.source.bibliographicCitationNgo, N., N. Pemunta, N. Basil, F. Tembe, M. Eyambe, K. Ezra, H. Ngwa, and E. Sabo (2021): “Reproductive health policy saga: Restrictive abortion laws in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), unnecessary cause of maternal mortality,” Health Care for Women International, 45, 5–23.
dc.source.instnameinstname:Universidad del Rosario
dc.source.reponamereponame:Repositorio Institucional EdocUR
dc.subjectReforma del aborto
dc.subjectSalud neonatal
dc.subjectPolítica de salud reproductiva
dc.subject.jelI14
dc.subject.jelJ13
dc.subject.jelK38
dc.subject.jelO54
dc.subject.keywordAbortion reform
dc.subject.keywordNeonatal health
dc.subject.keywordMaternal selection
dc.subject.keywordDifference-in-differences
dc.subject.keywordColombia
dc.subject.keywordReproductive health policy
dc.titleWhen Partial Liberalization Saves Lives: The Impact of Colombia's 2006 Abortion Reform on Neonatal Health
dc.typeworkingPaper
dc.type.hasVersioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/draft
dc.type.spaDocumento de trabajo
Archivos
Bloque original
Mostrando1 - 1 de 1
Miniatura
Nombre:
dt330R.pdf
Tamaño:
499.49 KB
Formato:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Descripción:
Descargar
Colecciones
Serie Documentos de Trabajo. Facultad de Economía