About

Amanda Jean Stevenson is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is trained in demographic and computer science methods and focuses her research on the impacts of and responses to abortion and family planning policy. Her current work involves using demographic methods to study the effects of reproductive health policies and employing computational methods to analyze social responses to these policies. She leads the Colorado Fertility Project, which utilizes restricted-access administrative data from the Census Bureau to evaluate the life course consequences of access to highly effective contraception. Her team is developing a large-scale, individual-level longitudinal dataset called Reproduction in People’s Lives (RIPL), integrating administrative records and surveys to describe the reproductive life course of nearly all US residents. Additionally, she co-leads a collaborative project that uses mixed-methods to assess the impacts of parental involvement laws and the judicial bypass process for minors seeking abortion care. Her research on reproductive health policies has been published in prominent journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Science Advances, and the American Journal of Public Health, among others. She regularly translates her findings into policy-relevant insights, testifies on demographic impacts of legislation, and her work has been cited by the United States Supreme Court and various major media outlets. Another area of her research examines social responses to reproductive health policies, utilizing data from Twitter, media coverage, and interviews to explore social movement dynamics, intersectional critiques, and the role of emotions and relationships in shaping policy discourse.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Obstetrics
• Environmental health
• Demography
• Psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Social psychology
• Law

Selected publications

• Differences Between State-Level and Nationwide Abortion Bans

  JAMA Network Open · 2026-04-03

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Don’t Panic: Population Projection is Not a Crystal Ball

  2025-08-21

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Population panic – worries about “depopulation” linked to low birth rates – has become pervasive, with dire predictions in both the short and long term. Yet demographers like us – experts who explicitly study population size, composition, and structure – are generally not highly concerned. Why is this? It’s because we understand the strengths and limitations of population projections. Projections can accurately describe how populations will change if we know future birth, death, and migration rates. But demographers are well aware that they don’t have a crystal ball – we can't fully anticipate economic shifts, political changes, global events, or how future generations will respond to their changing worlds. That’s why the farther we project from the present, the less accurate those projections are likely to be.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Changes in contraceptive method mix following the Colorado Family Planning Initiative

  Contraception · 2024-03-22 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Trends in Maternal Death Post-<i>Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health</i>

  JAMA Network Open · 2024-08-27 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This cross-sectional study examines monthly maternal deaths after the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health decision.

  PublisherDOI

• U.S. Fertility in Life Course Context: A Research Note on Using Census-Held Linked Administrative Records for Geographic and Sociodemographic Subgroup Estimation

  Demography · 2024-03-20 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Fertility is a life course process that is strongly shaped by geographic and sociodemographic subgroup contexts. In the United States, scholars face a choice: they can situate fertility in a life course perspective using panel data, which is typically representative only at the national level; or they can attend to subnational contexts using rate schedules, which do not include information on life course statuses. The method and data source we introduce here, Census-Held Linked Administrative Records for Fertility Estimation (CLAR-FE), permits both. It derives fertility histories and rate schedules from U.S. Census Bureau-held data for the nation and by state, racial and ethnic subgroups, and the important life course status of parity. We generate three types of rates for 2000-2020 at the national and state levels by race and ethnicity: age-specific rates and both unconditional and conditional parity- and age-specific rates. Where possible, we compare these rates with those produced by the National Center for Health Statistics. Our new rate schedules illuminate state and racial and ethnic differences in transitions to parenthood, providing evidence of the important subgroup heterogeneity that characterizes the United States. CLAR-FE covers nearly the entire U.S. population and is available to researchers on approved projects through the Census Bureau's Federal Statistical Research Data Centers.

  PublisherDOI

• Do abortion bans somehow save pregnant people’s lives? A cautionary research note on trends in maternal death post-Dobbs

  2024-03-23

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The National Center for Health Statistics’ published provisional monthly estimates of maternal death (12-month ending counts) appear to demonstrate that the end of federal protection for abortion rights in June 2022 was associated with an immediate and dramatic decline in maternal deaths. In this research note we investigate this apparent association by comparing the 12-month ending counts with monthly counts of maternal death. We decompose change in the 12-month ending counts into change due to months leaving the sum and change due to the current month entering the sum and conclude that the rapid decline in the 12-month ending counts is driven by events in 2021, specifically the shock to maternal deaths during the Delta and Omicron waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Actual monthly final and provisional maternal deaths from the National Vital Statistics Surveillance System did not decline after June 2022. We caution that any analysis of change in maternal deaths should exercise extreme caution when using summed measures in general and the 12-month ending counts in particular.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Colorado’s Parental Notification Law For Abortion Care Affects Many Thousands of Young People

  2023-10-08 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Background: Colorado law requires young people under 18 to notify a parent or petition a judge for a bypass of parental notification prior to obtaining abortion care. Decades of research demonstrate the harms of parental involvement laws, but the number of young people in Colorado exposed to the law has not been published. We estimate exposure to Colorado’s parental notification law among Coloradans and young people from surrounding states. Methods: We identify nested tiers of exposure to the parental notification law: the largest contains all young people 12-17, and nested tiers include those young people who could become pregnant; those who do become pregnant; those who receive abortion care; and those who rely on judicial bypass . We estimate the size of these groups in 2020 and 2022 for Colorado, and in 2020 for surrounding states from which young people come to Colorado for care.Results: In 2022, 440,000 Colorado young people were exposed to the law, almost half of whom could experience pregnancy and 973 of whom did become pregnant. Between 2020 and 2022, there was a 45% increase in the number of abortions obtained by Colorado young people (239 to 347) and a 110% increase in the number of abortions obtained by young people from out of state (51 to 107), all of whom must satisfy the parental notification law. We estimate that in 2022, between 20 and 80 Colorado young people were forced to undergo judicial bypass, as were 12 to 25 young people from surrounding states. In 2020, prior to complete state abortion bans, 10,500 young people in surrounding states experienced a pregnancy, and 1,525 received abortion care. Conclusions: Thousands of young people in Colorado and in surrounding states are exposed to the harms of the parental involvement law, and dozens rely on judicial bypass each year. There is no reproductive equity or justice in Colorado while the parental involvement law remains in effect.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Use of Judicial Bypass of Mandatory Parental Consent to Access Abortion and Judicial Bypass Denials, Florida and Texas, 2018–2021

  American Journal of Public Health · 2023-01-12 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Objectives. To describe minors’ use of judicial bypass to access abortion and the percentage of bypass petitions denied in Florida and Texas. Methods. Data were derived from official state statistics on judicial bypasses and abortions by age in Texas and Florida; abortions in Texas among minor nonresidents were estimated. In addition, judicial bypass petitions as a percentage of abortions received by minors and judicial bypass denials as a percentage of petitions were calculated. Results. Between 2018 and 2021, minors received 5527 abortions in Florida and an estimated 5220 abortions in Texas. Use of judicial bypass was stable at 14% to 15% in Florida and declined from 14% to 10% in Texas. Among petitions for judicial bypass, denials increased in Florida from 6% to a maximum of 13% and remained stable in Texas at 5% to 7%. Conclusions. Minors’ use of judicial bypass in Texas and Florida is substantial. The percentage of denials is higher and increasing in Florida. Public Health Implications. Minors who need confidential abortion care may now be forced to seek judicial bypass far from home. Parental involvement laws in states that do not ban abortion will compound barriers to abortion care. (Am J Public Health. 2023;113(3):316–319. https://doi.org/10.2105/10.2105/AJPH.2022.307173 )

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Estimating the demand for later abortions after Dobbs

  2023-04-27 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen access

  This study estimates the effect of post-Dobbs abortion bans on the demand for clinic-based abortions in the U.S. at gestations after 24 weeks, when provider capacity is the most limited. Applying life table methods to national abortion incidence data and key informants’ estimates of the pre-Dobbs capacity for abortion provision at 24+ weeks, we model post-Dobbs change in number of abortions performed before 24 weeks gestation and estimate increased demand for abortions after 24 weeks. To assess the sensitivity of increased demand after 24 weeks, we use a variety of alternative assumptions regarding change in supply of care at earlier gestations, rates of self-managed abortion, and gestational age-specific rates of discontinuation of abortion care seeking.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The maternal mortality consequences of losing abortion access

  2022 · 37 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Medicine
  • Demography
  • Obstetrics

  We update estimates of the maternal mortality impact of no abortions occurring in the U.S. following the recent release of new national and state abortion incidence data for 2020. This estimate quantifies the increase in maternal deaths that would occur after a total abortion ban solely due to the greater mortality risk of continuing pregnancy to term compared to having an abortion. We estimate the number of additional U.S. maternal deaths by race/ethnicity that would be caused if no abortion occurred, following previously published procedures and using published 2020 statistics on maternal mortality, births, and abortions. After the first year of no abortion occurring, we estimate increased exposure to the risks of pregnancy would cause an increase of 210 maternal deaths per year (24% increase), from 861 to 1071. The increase would be greatest among non-Hispanic Black people, for whom it would be 39%. We also estimate, by state, the number of additional maternal deaths caused by no abortion occurring in the 26 U.S. states that either have banned or the Guttmacher Institute estimates will soon ban abortion. We find that increases in some states would be as great as 29%, while in others, because of already extremely low abortion rates and numbers, less than 1 additional death would be expected. Banning abortion will likely change maternal mortality in ways beyond exposing more people to the existing risks of maternal death; any increase in maternal mortality due to these changes would be in addition to our estimates.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Daniel Grossman

  University of Alabama at Birmingham

  52 shared

• Kate Coleman‐Minahan

  University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

  51 shared

• Kari White

  49 shared

• Joseph E. Potter

  University of Arizona

  49 shared

• Kristine Hopkins

  The University of Texas at Austin

  42 shared

• Chloe Dillaway

  Johns Hopkins University

  27 shared

• Daniel A. Powers

  The University of Texas at Austin

  26 shared

• Jane Menken

  Agincourt Health and Socio-Demographic Surveillance System

  8 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Sociology

  University of Colorado Boulder

• M.S., Demography

  University of Colorado Boulder

• B.A., Sociology

  University of Colorado Boulder