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1. States with abortion bans see more births but also more infant deaths, studies show
Three new studies provide nationwide data on the impact of abortion bans and show the far-reaching effects of the abortion bans that have proliferated in the United States since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022. The studies have provided some of the first nationwide data on the effects of abortion bans in the states where they are currently active, revealing more births but also a rise in infant deaths.
SOURCE: ABC News, by Jessica Yang, 18 February 2025
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2. Missouri clinics resume abortions after judge strikes restrictions
“Today’s decision is a triumph for all Missourians,” the president of Planned Parenthood Great Plains said. Missouri health care providers can now resume offering abortion care after a Jackson County circuit court judge temporarily blocked a restrictive anti-abortion law.
“Today’s decision is a triumph for all Missourians: for the voters who demanded their rights, for the medical providers we trust to provide care, and most importantly, for patients who will now be able to receive high-quality care without fear,” said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains. “Abortion care will be restored immediately. The people voted, the court responded, and we will do our part: serving Missourians in their home state.”
SOURCE: TruthOut, by Zane McNeill, 18 February 2025
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3. Missouri bill proposes registry for pregnant women to ‘reduce preventable abortions’
Legislation introduced in Missouri would create a list of “at risk” pregnant women in the state in order to “reduce the number of preventable abortions.” House Bill 807, nicknamed the “Save MO Babies Act,” was proposed by Republican state Rep. Phil Amato.
The bill summary states that, if passed, Missouri would create a registry of every expecting mother in the state “who is at risk for seeking an abortion” starting July 1, 2026. The list would be created through the Maternal and Child Services division of the Department of Social Services, but the measure did not specify how the “at risk” would be identified.
SOURCE: The Hill, by Megan Mueller. 18 February 2025
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4. Republican states claim zero abortions. A red state doctor calls that ‘ludicrous’
States reported a sharp decline in abortions after Roe v. Wade was overruled.
In Arkansas, state health officials announced a stunning statistic for 2023: The total number of abortions in the state, where some 1.5 million women live, was zero.
In South Dakota, too, official records show zero abortions that year.
And in Idaho, home to abortion battles that have recently made their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the official number of recorded abortions was just five.
In nearly a dozen states with total or near-total abortion bans, government officials claimed that zero or very few abortions occurred in 2023, the first full year after the Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion rights.
Those statistics, the most recent available and published in government records, have been celebrated by anti-abortion activists. Medical professionals say such accounts are not only untrue but fundamentally dishonest.
“To say there are no abortions going on in South Dakota is ludicrous,” said Amy Kelley, an OB-GYN in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, citing female patients who have come to her hospital after taking abortion pills or to have medical procedures meant to prevent death or end nonviable pregnancies. “I can think of five off the top of my head that I dealt with,” she said, “and I have 15 partners.”
For some data scientists, these statistics also suggest a troubling trend: the potential politicization of vital statistics.
“It’s so clinically dishonest,” said Ushma Upadhyay, a public health scientist at the University of California-San Francisco, who co-chairs WeCount, an academic research effort that has kept a tally of the number of abortions nationwide since April 2022.
“The zeroing out is statistically unlikely,” Upadhyay said, “and also runs counter to the reality that pregnancy comes with many risks and in many cases emergency abortion care will be needed. We know they are sometimes necessary to save the pregnant person’s life, so I do hope there are abortions occurring in South Dakota.”
But… state officials reported a sharp decline in the official number of abortions after the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
-Arkansas reported zero abortions in 2023, compared with 1,621 in 2022.
-Idaho reported five in 2023 compared with 1,553 in 2021.
-South Dakota, which had severely restricted abortions years ahead of the Dobbs ruling, reported zero in 2023 compared with 192 abortions in 2021….
-Texas reported 50,783 abortions in the state in 2021. In 2023, and 2024 they reported on average five a month.
Anti-abortion politicians and activists have cited these statistics to bolster their claims that their decades-long crusade to end abortion is a success….
[This article continues at great length and continues to be fascinating to the end…]
SOURCE: abcnews, by Sarah Varney | KFF Health News, 13 February 2025
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5. The legacy of “pro-life” abortion bans is death
Infant mortality rates in the US have rapidly increased since Roe vs. Wade was overturned in 2022. With all of the disastrous, world-imperilling decisions being made by Donald Trump, it’s easy to forget that less than three years ago the US Supreme Court stripped women of their fundamental right to bodily autonomy in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health. In the years since, conservative states have set about banning abortion. Now, we’re starting to see the consequences of those bans.
A study published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that, since the Supreme Court ruling in June 2022, there has been an almost 6% per cent relative increase in infant mortality rates in states that subsequently banned abortion. Among black infants in these states, there was a relative increase of 11% per cent in mortality.
SOURCE: New Statesman, by Jill Filipovic. February 2025.