Since Texas banned abortion, no one has studied the statewide effects on pregnant women experiencing complications. Here’s how we sifted through data on millions of pregnancy hospitalizations and analyzed the outcomes before and after the ban.
The analysis found that the sepsis rate in second-trimester pregnancy loss hospitalizations in Texas increased by over 50% after the state’s abortion ban (SB 8) went into effect in September 2021. The increase was most pronounced in cases where the fetus may have still had a heartbeat when the patient arrived at the hospital. The analysis also identified at least 120 in-hospital deaths of pregnant or postpartum women in 2022 and 2023, which is an increase from the pre-pandemic period.
The analysis found that maternal mortality rates in Texas increased by 33% between 2019 and 2023, while nationally there was a 7.5% decrease during the same time period. Both nationally and in Texas, maternal mortality rates peaked in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic and have since dropped, but rates in Texas remain higher than before the pandemic.
Important topic, and I wish we all had the time to read it in full. But in the spirit of a discussion board, here is a summary in the comments:
TLDRthis.com Summary:
the ignorance really is BIGGER in Texas!
Thank you for providing the summary, you’ve done more with a post than many US ‘politicians’ will in their entire ‘career’ :)