Study finds Texas births up, abortions down after fetal heartbeat law passed
Texas birth rates remain below the national average, while abortion rates also have fallen this year, according to a new study by the Williams Institute at the University of Virginia. The research team, which analyzed birth and abortion records from 2010 through 2014, also found that the number of women obtaining their abortions before the first week of pregnancy decreased by more than 1 percent since 2008.
The paper, “State abortion laws and state outcomes: Evidence from Texas,” provides a national first look at how changes in abortion laws have tracked with changes in birth and abortion rates in states that have passed the most extensive abortion laws. The report, which was released Tuesday, was based on statistics from birth and abortion records as well as on data from public opinion surveys and from surveys of women’s health providers about abortion.
The study also tracked changes in the abortion rate from 2008 to 2014 in states that have recently passed abortion laws, to measure what the new laws have wrought. Abortion rates have fallen in 11 of 13 states that approved abortion rights by majority vote, the report found: Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
Texas’s abortion rate, which was a majority-woman-proper use rate of 59.5 percent in 2014 (though a smaller share of the total population used it than in 2010), has fallen by nearly 9 percentage points since 2008. The researchers found that Texas’s abortion rate fell by 11 percentage points after passage of the 2013 “fetal remains” abortion ban, which is also known as HB 2. Texas’s abortion rate fell by 10.9 percentage points after the 2012 enactment of restrictions on abortions involving the use of medication or surgery.
The researchers also found that Texas’s abortion rate fell by 1.7 percentage points after the 2013 enactment of restrictions on abortions involving the use of medication and abortion pill.
The new study, which had a four-year time lag between 2012 and 2014 compared to two-year time lapses in previous studies, also found that abortion rates and birth rates in Texas increased after the