Parental notification and Abortion

The New York Times has an article today arguing that parental notification has no statistically significant impact on the number of abortions. There is a paper by Jon Klick and Thomas Stratmann that argues that parental notification has a significant impact on sexual activity. They test this by looking at how the gonorrhea rate for teenage females varies relative to that rate for adult women before and after the adoption of these laws. To find their paper, click on the spring 2006 folder and then the paper entitled "Abortion Access and Risky Sex Among Teens: Parental Involvement Laws and Sexually Transmitted Diseases." They claim that "We estimate reductions in gonorrhea rates of 20 percent for Hispanics and 12 percent for whites. While we find a relatively small reduction in rates for black girls, it is not statistically significant."

I have read the Klick and Stratmann paper, and overall it is solid. I suspect that the paper the New York Times discusses is not anywhere nearly as well done.