Texas Abortion Ban Makes Additional 10,000 Births Possible

A new study has revealed that nearly 10,000 babies were saved by Texas’ abortion restrictions — which banned the practice after a heartbeat can be detected in an unborn child.

According to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, there were an estimated 9,799 additional births in Texas that would not have happened without the abortion ban.

The researchers note that these additional births happened between April and December 2022, and explained that the cause of this increase was likely due to the “barriers to abortion access.”

“Although our study doesn’t detail why these extra births occurred, our findings strongly suggest that a considerable number of pregnant individuals in Texas were unable to overcome barriers to abortion access,” explained Alison Gemmill, a lead author of the study, according to Life News.

While Texas previously allowed abortion up to 22 weeks of gestation, the state passed a law in 2021 banning abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat — which can occur as early as 5 or 6 weeks into a pregnancy. The law was challenged by pro-abortion groups, but officially went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022.

Texas was one of several Republican-led states that had a “trigger law” on the books to ban abortion as soon as the Supreme Court overturned Roe and gave the power back to the states to determine their own abortion laws.

Just The News reported on the methodology used by the Johns Hopkins researchers to determine the number of babies saved by Texas’ abortion law.

“During the period, the researchers created a ‘synthetic’ Texas using monthly live birth data from every state and the District of Columbia in prior years, which they then compared to the actual birth numbers,” the outlet wrote. “They found that their hypothetical Texas would have witnessed 287,289 births from April to December 2022 had the abortion ban not taken effect.”

“The publishers of the study note that its findings are unique to Texas and cannot be nationalized,” the outlet noted.

Looking at the true numbers, there were actually 297,088 live births in Texas during that period, which equaled a difference of 9,799 lives saved by the abortion ban.

“Research suggests the Texas law saved about 1,225 babies from abortion every month,” Life News reported. “These are unique, valuable children who will have the opportunity to grow and thrive, experience joy, develop relationships and contribute to society.”

Pro-life activists celebrated the news on social media.

Lila Rose, founder and president of pro-life organization Live Action, tweeted: “Amazing example of the lives saved when we use the law to stop abortion. When someone tells you banning abortion doesn’t stop abortion, they are lying. Ban abortion. Protect innocent human life.”