The number of deaths among pregnant women has jumped in Texas since the US state abolished abortion rights, reveal data reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) and analyzed by the Gender Equity Policy Institute (GEPI).
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From 2019 to 2022, the mortality rate among pregnant women increased by 56% in this southern US state. By comparison, the national average increased by 11% during the same period.
“There is only one explanation for this significant gap. (…) All the data points to the abolition of abortion in Texas as the main cause of this alarming increase,” says GEPI President Nancy L. Cohen.
The latter also believes that the situation in Texas is a harbinger of what is likely to happen in other states.
Texas struck down abortion rights at five weeks of pregnancy in September 2021, nearly a year before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The US government now bans all abortions unless it is to save the mother’s life.
“If you prevent women from having abortions, more women will get pregnant and more women will be forced to carry their pregnancies to term,” says Nancy L. Cohen.
The number of pregnancies that ended in maternal death is particularly high among black women, rising from 31.6 to 43.6 deaths per 100,000 births in 3 years, reaching a peak of 79.5 in 2021.
