Johns Hopkins analysis confirms impact of 6-week abortion ban
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(Photo by Valeria Zoncoll on Unsplash)
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]
By Sam Dorman
Live Action News
A new study from Johns Hopkins University indicates that Texas’ 2021 “heartbeat bill” saved nearly 10,000 babies from abortion, providing additional corroboration for the effectiveness of pro-life laws.
Released on Thursday, the study came amid a flurry of news that women were crossing state lines in the year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe and allowed individual states to impose greater restrictions on the procedure. But according to Hopkins’ study, which attempted to account for travel to neighboring states, “out-of-state abortions did not fully offset the overall decrease in facility-based abortions in the post–SB 8 period.”
The researchers, which included two affiliated with Planned Parenthood, added: “This decrease in facility-based abortion care suggests that many Texas residents continued their pregnancies, traveled beyond a neighboring state, or self-managed their abortion. Moreover, the decrease that occurred following SB 8—when Texas residents could obtain care in all neighboring states—might be even greater now that Texas and many surrounding states have banned abortions.”
In total, Hopkins statistical modeling projected that Texas’ law was associated with 9,799 “additional live births” in the state. Dr. Allison Gemmell, a Hopkins assistant professor, used the term “extra” to describe the births – phrasing that provoked criticism on social media.
“There has been a lot of speculation about how restrictive abortion policies will affect the number of babies being born. This research adds valuable information to that discussion,” said Gemmill. “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.”
