Pregnancy deaths rose by 56% in Texas after 2021 abortion ban, analysis finds
The number of women in Texas who died while pregnant, during labor or soon after childbirth skyrocketed after the state’s ban on abortion care, a new analysis finds.
The number of women in Texas who died while pregnant, during labor or soon after childbirth skyrocketed following the state’s 2021 ban on abortion care — far outpacing a slower rise in maternal mortality across the nation, a new investigation of federal public health data finds.
From 2019 to 2022, the rate of maternal mortality cases in Texas rose by 56%, compared with just 11% nationwide during the same time period, according to an analysis by the Gender Equity Policy Institute. The nonprofit research group scoured publicly available reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and shared the analysis exclusively with NBC News.
“There’s only one explanation for this staggering difference in maternal mortality,” said Nancy L. Cohen, president of the GEPI. “All the research points to Texas’ abortion ban as the primary driver of this alarming increase.”
“Texas, I fear, is a harbinger of what’s to come in other states,” she said.
The Texas Legislature banned abortion care as early as five weeks into pregnancy in September 2021, nearly a year before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — the case that protected a federal right to abortion — in June 2022.
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