Texas saw over 16,000 more births year after passing six-week abortion ban

The Lone Star State saw over 16,000 more births in 2022 after Texas implemented its six-week abortion ban the year prior, according to a report from the University of Houston.

In 2021, Texas passed a law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and in June 2022 the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing the state to expand the law to prohibit all abortions from conception. As a result, the birth rate in Texas saw an overall increase of 2%, equating to roughly 16,147 births, with a majority of them among Hispanic women between the ages of 25 and 44, according to the report.

Texas’ birth rate climbed for the first time since 2014, despite the United States’ national birth rate falling from 56.3 births per 1,000 women to 56.1%, according to the report. Hispanic women alone saw an 8% increase, while black and white women’s birth rates declined by 0.6% and 1%, respectively.

Black, Asian, and Hispanic teens also saw an increase in pregnancies at 0.5%, 1.2%, and 8.2%, respectively, according to the report. White teens, alternatively, saw a 0.5% decrease in pregnancies in Texas.

“We knew that there would be an effect and, since we’ve seen initial data, we knew that it probably would be skewed in terms of greater Hispanic effect,” Elizabeth Gregory, the lead author of the report with the University of Houston’s Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality, told The Texas Tribune. “But seeing the actual data, it makes it less of a theoretical discussion and more of a discussion the community has to have around what’s happening in people’s lives and how this affects individuals.”

Texas abortions also dramatically dropped in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center, from 50,000 in 2021 to 17,000 in 2022, and just 40 were reported in 2023, according to The Texas Tribune.

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