The incidence of psychological problems following abortion is hotly debated. This article uses a methodological critique of the key research to argue that prevalence rates for psychological risks following legal abortions in the U.S. should be viewed with great caution. Knowledge of prevalence alone, however, is inadequate for policy decisions. Information is also needed about the risks associated with the policy options intended to replace abortion (relative risk). Studies that used a comparison group have shown that the psychological risks associated with abortion are similar to those associated with childbirth. Furthermore, past research cannot answer whether abortion causes psychological responses that sometimes occur. We conclude that, although the studies cited by pro‐choice advocates are much more methodologically sound than those cited by pro‐life advocates, decisions about what risks are acceptable are largely political decisions rather than scientific ones.

In January 1985, New York State implemented legislation that allowed for a 30 percent increase in Medicaid fees for physicians providing primary care services. This was intended to increase their levels of participation. Yet the outcome was not as expected. In upstate New York, the number of physicians participating in Medicaid each month actually declined; in New York City, the monthly rate of increase in participating physicians, which was part of the overall sharp rise in all licensed physicians, underwent a decline. Furthermore, utilization measures suggest that "procedural upgrading" might have become a problem in New York City. These results suggest that a marginal increase in New York State's low Medicaid fees will not have a positive effect on physician participation levels.

This article examines factors that could have influenced whether evaluations of U.S. government–funded foreign assistance programs completed in 2015 had considered unintended consequences. Logit regression models indicate that the odds of considering unintended consequences were increased when all or most of seven standard data collection methods had been used, and there were some agency effects; however, no associations were found with evaluation type (impact vs. performance), timing, or whether evaluations were conducted by external evaluators. These results suggest that some proportion of the evaluations that did not consider unintended consequences would have considered such consequences if they had employed more data collection methods. Moreover, few of the evaluations that considered unintended consequences provided many details about their investigative methodologies or the consequences themselves, which raises further concerns that users might not have received information that would have helped for learning or accountability purposes.

This study expands the growing literature in comparative public policy that examines welfare services. By now, it is accepted that a combination of economic, social, and political factors are influential in the delivery of these services by the 60 states. This paper finds that similar factors are also operating at the county level in New York state. Most notably, political factors affect the distribution of welfare benefits-despite federal and state mandates that require distribution to be based solely on need. This raises a number of issues. concerning the nature of political influence and the autonomy of local bureaucracies, which require further exploration. Copyright 1990 by The Policy Studies Organization.

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