(LifeSiteNews) — A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) confirms what previous years reports have discovered regarding the positive impact of the Texas Heartbeat Act passed in 2021.
Writing for National Review, pro-life researcher and statistician Dr. Michael New said JAMA’s study found that the law has reduced abortions more than 18 percent over the past four years.
“While abortion numbers fell among all age demographics, the results indicate the incidence of abortion fell the most among Texans younger than 18 years of age,” he said of the report’s findings.
Multiple studies have been conducted over the past four years on Texas’ Heartbeat Act. In 2022, the Society of Family Planning concluded that in Texas “a total of 10,000 fewer abortions took place in June and July — a relatively modest decline, about 6 percent.” In August 2022, Texas saw zero elective legal abortions and just three abortions for physical threats to a mother’s life. In that same year, Texas Right to Life highlighted data from the Texas Department of Health & Human Services revealing a decline as well.
Dr. New also said that three other studies have been conducted on the Heartbeat Act. They, too, show that it has “saved over 1,000 lives every month” since it went into effect.
The authors of the JAMA report state they collected data from Texas as well as from six surrounding states. They also looked at data from abortions committed from September 2020 until May 2021 and from September 2021 until May 2022, when the law went into effect. They found that “after the law’s implementation, total (in-state and out-of-state) facility-based abortions decreased by 26.1%” for Texans under age 18. Women across all age groups obtained fewer abortions as well, with a drop of 19.6 percent from women between 18 and 24 and a drop of 17 percent for women 25 to 29.
On November 24, Howard County, Texas, became the 14th county in the United States to ban abortion and related activities like trafficking and disposing of aborted baby remains. On November 17, 2023, Wolfforth, Texas became America’s 85th sanctuary city for pre-born babies, declaring nearly all abortions illegal within its boundaries. One year earlier in 2022, Lea County in neighboring New Mexico established itself as a “sanctuary” for the unborn. The state’s liberal governor, Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham, previously ordered $10 million in taxpayer money to build an abortion facility near the New Mexico-Texas border in an effort to lure pregnant women from the Lone Star state to the location to have abortions.
Texas has some of the most robust protections for the pre–born in the United States, prohibiting all abortions except if the mother suffers from a “life-threatening physical condition.” Pro-lifers point out that the deliberate killing of a preborn baby is never medically necessary. It is currently one of 12 states that bans all or most abortions. The abortion lobby continues to preserve abortion “access” via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills and legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel.
While pro-lifers held out hope that the Trump administration would ban chemical abortion pill mifepristone, the FDA announced in October that a generic version had been approved. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. previously told congressional hearings that he was studying the “safety” of the pill, giving pro-lifers hope that he would ban it outright.
Earlier this week, a three-judge panel upheld a U.S. District Court judge’s previous decision to grant a preliminary injunction against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who had been seeking to prevent crisis pregnancy centers across the state from promoting progesterone as a way to reverse the effects of chemical abortions. The decision allows pro-lifers in the state to continue to spread the truth about abortion pill reversal thanks to a U.S. Appeals Court ruling on Monday.
