More than two years since the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade stripped abortion rights of federal protection, some states have seen abortion rates plummet to near-zero levels.
For example, both Indiana and Texas are reporting huge declines in reported abortions following their state legislatures’ passage of abortion bans, with few exceptions.
Indiana’s official abortion report for the second quarter of 2024, released Aug. 29, documents 27 reported abortions for April, May and June—the lowest quarterly level in Indiana since before Roe vs. Wade in 1973.
“The numbers represent a 98.6% drop in abortions compared to quarter two of last year, when Indiana’s abortion law was still blocked by the courts and 1,938 abortions were reported,” Indiana Right to Life tells LifeNews.com. “The drop from 2023 to 2024 represents 1,911 fewer babies aborted in Indiana in quarter two of 2024 versus quarter two of 2023.”
In Texas, 2,595 elective abortions were reported in June 2022. But no elective abortions have been reported from August 2022 through April 2024. During this same period, however, doctors reported performing 113 medically necessary abortions, all in hospitals.
“The latest report reaffirms that Kamala Harris’ dire claims about Texas’ protective abortion laws are completely baseless,” said Amy O’Donnell, Texas Alliance for Life’s communications director. “Texas’ laws continue to save unborn babies from abortion while also protecting women’s lives in those rare and tragic cases where pregnancy endangers a pregnant woman’s life or health.”
“Since the Court overturned Roe, no doctor has been prosecuted by a district attorney, sanctioned by the Texas Medical Board, or sued by the Attorney General, and no pregnant woman has lost her life because of the provisions of Texas’ abortion laws, even with more than 360,000 live births in Texas each year,” O’Donnell added.
In 2021, the Texas Legislature passed, and Gov. Greg Abbott signed HB 1280, the Human Life Protection Act, which protects unborn children from elective abortion beginning at conception. That law includes an exception for medically necessary abortions when the pregnancy causes “a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places the female at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion is performed or induced.” The law went into effect shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe in June 2022.
On May 31, the Texas Supreme Court, in Zurawski v. Texas, determined that the exception in the Texas Human Life Protection Act is both constitutional and clear. Physicians may use “reasonable medical judgment” to determine whether a pregnancy requires a medically necessary abortion. The court emphasized that the law does not require a physician to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent danger before performing a life-saving abortion.
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