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Very young adolescent women in Georgia: has abortion or contraception lowered their fertility?

J D Shelton

Despite a state law enacted in 1972 which allowed minors to obtain contraceptive services without parental consent, births to very young women in Georgia (age 14 and less) have risen in recent years. Beginning in 1974, however, this trend has reversed. Increased access to induced abortion following the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision appears to have been responsible for the decline. Supporting this assertion are: 1) the temporal relationship between increased access to abortion and the decline in births, 2) the geographic evidence that the decline in births occurred first in Atlanta where abortion utilization is the highest and then followed in areas with somewhat more limited utilization, and 3) a similar observation that the decline occurred earlier and more markedly among young white teenagers whose abortion utilization is higher. Although abortion appears to have had the most visible impact on births, most people would probably agree that efforts toward providing contraception to these young women remain worth the challenge. The ratio of young teenegers accepting contraceptives to young teenegers getting pregnant is suggested as a useful intermediator of the success of family planning programs.