Do Policies Affect Preferences? Evidence from Random Variation in Abortion Jurisprudence

Abstract: Whether policies shift preferences is important in policy design. A historical narrative suggests turning to the courts to vindicate rights often led to mobilization and subsequent acceptance. We build and test a model where policies backfire in the short-run but then change social norms. We exploit the random assignment of U.S. Federal judges creating geographically local precedent and the the fact that, for over 30 years, judges’ politics, religion, and race predict decision-making in abortion jurisprudence. Instrumenting for abortion jurisprudence with plausibly exogenous judicial characteristics, we find that pro-choice abortion jurisprudence increased violence against abortion providers, campaign donations to pro-life causes, and shifted preferences against legalized abortion in the immediate aftermath, but abortion views followed courts in the long-run. We verify that newspapers report on local abortion jurisprudence and that hearing about abortion decisions shifts preferences against what the law intends, consistent with a mechanism where information mobilizes individuals. Our estimated impacts on abortion attitudes arises exclusively with abortion jurisprudence, and varies neither with jurisprudence in a closely related area nor jurisprudence in advance of the decisions.