Ban on Abortion in Texas Leads to Drastic Rise in Infant Deaths: Study

Veuer

It’s been nearly 3 years since Texas implemented their abortion ban, one which prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, generally after 5 or 6 weeks. It was a law its supporters say would save the lives of children, however a new study reveals that’s not the case. Veuer’s Tony Spitz has the details.

Transcript

00:00It's been nearly three years since Texas implemented their abortion ban,

00:04one which prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected,

00:07generally after five or six weeks. It's a law its supporters say would save the lives of children.

00:12However, a new study reveals that's not the case. According to a new report by

00:17researchers with Johns Hopkins University, between 2018 and 2022,

00:21infant mortality in the state of Texas went up by 12.7 percent after the ban went into effect.

00:27What's more, deaths related to congenital disorders rose even more dramatically,

00:32going up by 22.9 percent over the same period. The study discovered that this anomaly occurred

00:38only in Texas, with other states having on average a 1.8 percent rise in infant mortality.

00:44And congenital disorder deaths actually went down everywhere else, by 3.1 percent on average,

00:50with the researchers writing as part of their report that the results suggest that restrictive

00:54abortion policies may have important unintended consequences in terms of trauma to families and

01:00medical cost as a result of increases in infant mortality. The Texas abortion ban makes no

01:05dispensation for congenital abnormalities, which experts say leads to the most infant

01:10deaths across the country. Curiously, there was also a massive increase in infant deaths

01:14related to unintentional injuries, rising 20.7 percent in Texas versus just 1.1 percent

01:22in the rest of the country.

Category

Transcript

Recommended