Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 3, 2023 / 14:52 pm
The six-week abortion ban in Texas, which outlaws abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, led to nearly 9,800 more births in the state over a nine-month period than otherwise expected, according to research published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University found that Texas’ abortion policies likely led to 9,799 more births between April 2022 and December 2022. The study was the first of its kind to investigate how abortion laws impact birth rates.
“There has been a lot of speculation about how restrictive abortion policies will affect the number of babies being born,” Alison Gemmill, one of the lead researchers in the study, said in a news release published by the university.
“This research adds valuable information to that discussion,” Gemmill added. “Although our study doesn’t detail why these extra births occurred, our findings strongly suggest that a considerable number of pregnant individuals in Texas were unable to overcome barriers to abortion access.”