As per recent reports, the abortion legislation known as SB 8, or “The Texas Heartbeat Act,” enacted on September 1, 2021, in Texas, is estimated to have resulted in approximately 10,000 fewer abortions from April to December 2022.
This number is likely significantly greater now, months later, according to an analysis from The Blaze.
This legislation, which restricts abortions post six weeks, when the heartbeat is usually detectable, significantly reduced the state’s previous threshold of 22 weeks.
According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2022, an examination of 80,107 abortions between September 2020 and February 2022 showed “a decrease in total in-state and out-of-state abortions in September 2021 compared with August 2021.”
The introduction of SB 8 thus seems to have had an immediate impact on abortion rates.
A fresh study, released this Thursday and subject to peer review, supports the ongoing impact of this legislation beyond 2021.
A team from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health used a sophisticated statistical model to scrutinize live birth data from all U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
Their findings indicate that, without the enactment of SB 8, Texas would have seen 287,289 live births from April to December 2022.
Contrastingly, with the ban in place, Texas recorded 297,088 births during the same period.
This suggests a likely reduction of 9,799 abortions, averaging over 1,000 a month.
The Texas Tribune, reporting on these findings, highlighted that there was a 5% increase in live births in Texas in December 2022, attributable to the Republican-enforced law.
The considerable effect of SB 8 in Texas underscores the significant shift in the state’s approach to abortion and its substantial impact on live birth rates.
