A new study finds that, in the wake of one of the country’s strictest abortion bans, the state’s infant mortality rate has dramatically spiked, far diverging from national trends. According to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics, the death toll of babies in Texas increased by almost 13 percent after the implementation of SB 8 in September 2021. This surge is far higher than the national rise of 2 percent elsewhere in the United States within the same time frame.
Known as the Texas heartbeat law, SB 8 bans abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be first detected—at five weeks of pregnancy. There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or severe congenital anomalies. Using this data, a team from Johns Hopkins University and Michigan State University analyzed data on nearly 102,400 infant deaths spanning the entire U.S. from 2018 to 2022, with a special focus on the time following SB 8’s enactment.
There was an alarming increased risk of neonatal mortality—infants less than 28 days old—in Texas, driven mostly by congenital anomalies. While the rest of the country trended downward in mortality rates attributed to problems relating to birth defects, Texas moved in the opposite direction. According to the authors, SB 8 was associated with 216 excess infant deaths that would not have occurred had the ban not been in place.
One of the study’s lead authors, Dr. Alison Gemmill, further explained what these findings had implications for: “These findings suggest that restrictive abortion policies may have important unintended consequences in terms of infant health and the associated trauma to families and medical costs,” said Dr. Alison Gemmill.
The study was released just days after the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had established a constitutional right to abortion. Instead, this ruling has set a wave of legislation across Republican states geared toward limiting abortion services.
The findings of the study raise questions about what kind of actual impact such restrictive laws have. Jessie Hill, a law professor specializing in reproductive rights, termed the increase in infant mortality an “entirely foreseeable result” of Texas’s near-total abortion ban. Hill said it is incredibly cruel to force people to carry nonviable pregnancies to term only to watch their infants die.
It also points out that access to quality prenatal care is crucial, particularly in those states that have strict abortion laws. According to a maternal-fetal medicine physician, Arianna Cassidy, though neonatal care has advanced, some congenital anomalies are too severe that treatment cannot be successful. This reality adds to the risk of surgeries for congenital anomalies and raises the infant mortality rates seen in Texas.
According to Destiny Lopez, the acting co-CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, all bans and restrictions on abortion need to be repealed so that access to abortion care is fully realized. Only then would a world with no such restrictive laws have the assurance that people could access the care needed in emergencies and others.
In a running debate on the question of abortion rights, these findings from this study have come as something of a rude reminder of what could be at stake in health-related terms if restrictive abortion policies are carried through. More specifically, these results raise deep questions about what laws like this one in Texas are intended to do and what real impact they have in terms of public health.
Ultimately, the study in JAMA Pediatrics provided cogent evidence that this abortion ban increased infant mortality, especially due to congenital anomalies. Therefore, such findings raise a very critical call for policymakers to consider the broader health implications of this sort of restrictive abortion law and really to open up access to comprehensive prenatal care and safe abortion.