Study: Texas fertility rate rose after 'Heartbeat Act'
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null / Credit: liseykina/ShutterstockCNA Staff, Jan 30, 2024 / 11:30 am (CNA).The fertility rate in Texas rose by a statistically significant amount in the wake of the state's pro-life laws, a University of Houston study has found. Texas, which prohibits abortion except in the case of medical emergencies, was among the numerous states with "trigger laws" in place that went into effect upon the Supreme Court's repeal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022. The state also enacted a "heartbeat" law that went into effect in 2021 and survived numerous legal challenges before Roe's repeal. The law effectively prohibited abortion after six weeks of gestation.A study out of the University of Houston's Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality found this month that the state's fertility rate rose markedly after the heartbeat ban went into effect. The "2022 overall fertility rate rose 2% in Texas" after the heartbeat bill, the researchers said in their stu...
null / Credit: liseykina/Shutterstock
CNA Staff, Jan 30, 2024 / 11:30 am (CNA).
The fertility rate in Texas rose by a statistically significant amount in the wake of the state's pro-life laws, a University of Houston study has found.
Texas, which prohibits abortion except in the case of medical emergencies, was among the numerous states with "trigger laws" in place that went into effect upon the Supreme Court's repeal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022. The state also enacted a "heartbeat" law that went into effect in 2021 and survived numerous legal challenges before Roe's repeal. The law effectively prohibited abortion after six weeks of gestation.
A study out of the University of Houston's Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality found this month that the state's fertility rate rose markedly after the heartbeat ban went into effect.
The "2022 overall fertility rate rose 2% in Texas" after the heartbeat bill, the researchers said in their study, released this month. The study used CDC data on 2022 birth rates in the state.
The demographics of the fertility spike were lopsided, the researchers noted. Fertility rates rose "most markedly among Hispanic women and specifically among Hispanic women 25-44 years old, who saw aggregated fertility rate rises of 8.0% and 8.5%, respectively."
The birth rate for women 15-19 years old also rose for the first time in 15 years, they said, by about 0.39%.
The rise in the overall rate of fertility was the first observed in Texas since 2014, the study said. They noted that researchers from Johns Hopkins University directly connected the heartbeat bill to an increase of nearly 10,000 births in the state.
Though broad post-Roe fertility data are presently unavailable, the researchers pointed out that the heartbeat bill's effects "provide an initial sense of what may follow in other states with bans, post Dobbs."
Other researchers, they noted, have already predicted "a likely 5.1% rise in the overall fertility rate in the state" due to the effects of the state's total abortion ban in the wake of Roe's repeal.
Other data have indicated a notable drop in abortions in the U.S. since Roe's repeal in June 2022, which brought an end to nearly five decades of federalized abortion rights in the United States.
The Society of Family Planning found in October 2022 that there were 5,270 fewer abortions in July of that year and 5,400 fewer in August after the Supreme Court's June 24 ruling on Roe.
A November 2023 study published by the IZA Institute for Labor Economics, meanwhile, found that following Roe's repeal, "states with abortion bans experienced an average increase in births of 2.3% relative to states where abortion was not restricted."
Texas ranked in the top 20 most pro-life states in Americans United for Life's 2023 "Life List" in December.
Pro-life activists in Texas held a state-level march for life in Austin last week, drawing what was reported to be a crowd of several thousand pro-life demonstrators to the state Legislature.
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null / Credit: ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 18:20 pm (CNA).The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) released a pair of emergency rules that it said are aimed at combating "misinformation" and a "deeply dishonest scare campaign" by the Biden administration about the state's new six-week pro-life law. The rules, published on May 1, establish guidance for lifesaving measures and clarify that certain procedures, including treatment for ectopic pregnancies, are not considered abortion and remain legal under the Florida Heartbeat Protection Act, which went into effect on Wednesday. This comes amid significant criticism over the state's pro-life law that prohibits abortions on women after six weeks of pregnancy except for in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger. The new AHCA rules further clarify those exceptions. "The agency finds there is an immediate danger to th...
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Oviedo Archbishop Jesús Sanz Montes accused the government of focusing "in a biased and manipulative way on the problem of pedophilia as something attributable only to the Catholic Church." / Credit: Archdiocese of OviedoACI Prensa Staff, May 2, 2024 / 18:50 pm (CNA)."They have done it again. It is a kind of obsessive mantra every time they need a smokescreen to distract from the real problems we have and to which they so clumsily and insidiously apply their tortuous governance."That is how the archbishop of Oviedo, Jesús Sanz Montes, began a letter released this week titled "The Accusing Rattle" in which he responds to the socialist government's announcement of an exclusive plan to address sexual and power abuses committed within the Catholic Church.In the opinion of the prelate, the country's executive "has tried to focus in a biased and manipulative way on the problem of pedophilia as something attributable only to the Catholic Church, which represents an exclusive...
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Pope Francis meets with 300 priests taking part in the World Meeting of Parish Priests on May 2, 2024, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican MediaRome Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 12:41 pm (CNA).Pope Francis published a letter on Thursday addressed to all parish priests in the world with his advice for building a missionary Church in which all the baptized share in the mission of proclaiming the Gospel."Parish communities increasingly need to become places from which the baptized set out as missionary disciples and to which they return, full of joy, in order to share the wonders worked by the Lord through their witness," Pope Francis wrote in the letter published on May 2.The pope presented the letter to 300 priests participating in the Synod on Synodality's "World Meeting of Parish Priests" during an audience at the Vatican, saying that their meeting is "an opportunity to remember in my prayers all of the parish priests in the world to whom I address these words with great affection."P...