(The Lion) — Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, pro-life state laws are saving lives, according to a recent study.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network (JAMA), investigated the impact of recent pro-life laws by observing state-level fertility data from 2012 to 2023.
Researchers found that states with abortion bans or restrictions, such as heartbeat bills, saw over 22,000 more births than anticipated in 2023.
Michael New, a senior associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a pro-life organization, told Catholic News Agency that this is the best way to track the impact of such laws.
“The abortion statistics released by state health departments may not reflect the actual incidence of abortion,” he explained.
“If more babies are being born after pro-life laws take effect, that is powerful statistical evidence that more unintended pregnancies are being carried to term – and lives are being saved – as a result of the pro-life law.”
New added that he thinks the JAMA study may still undercount the positive impact of pro-life laws by not accounting for states with later gestational limits on abortion.
The research also showed that pro-life laws generally impacted unmarried, black, Hispanic and Medicaid-recipient women more than other groups. It also found that bans in certain states, including large ones such as Texas, had a bigger impact on fertility rates than others.
As National Public Radio reported last week, about a dozen pro-life states reported zero or close to zero abortions in 2023. However, their figures do not account for women leaving the state or country to have abortions or women having illegal abortions. The latter generally involves self-administered chemical abortions mailed by an out-of-state abortion provider.
Shield laws in blue states help protect the abortionists who mail the drugs and help administer them via telemedicine. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, for example, refuses to extradite an abortionist from her state who helps Louisiana women have abortions.
Currently, 12 states ban elective abortion, while another six have heartbeat bills banning abortion after six weeks of gestation.
A federal gestational limit is unlikely anytime soon since President Donald Trump opposes it and the Senate is unlikely to get the 60 votes needed to pass it.
