On Thursday, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a study analyzing the impact of the Texas Heartbeat Act. The law took effect September 1, 2021, and protects preborn children after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks’ gestation. This JAMA study analyzed monthly birth data between 2016 and 2022 from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It found that the Heartbeat Act was associated with 9,799 additional births in Texas between April 2022 and December 2022. In short, the Texas Heartbeat Act has saved over 1,000 lives every month.
The findings of this Journal of the American Medical Association study (JAMA) are very consistent with my own previous research on the Texas Heartbeat Act. In my Lozier Institute study of November 2022, I analyzed Texas birth data from January 2019 to July 2022 and found that the Texas Heartbeat Act resulted in approximately 1,000 more births every month. In a later study, which I presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, I analyzed Texas birth data until November 2022 and found, again, that the Texas Heartbeat Act saved over 1,000 lives every month.
Since the law took effect, some journalists and scholars have attempted to downplay its effectiveness. A New York Times article in The Upshot on March 6, 2022, argued that most of the in-state abortion decline in Texas was offset by women seeking abortions in other states and by women obtaining chemical abortion pills through the mail. Similarly, a JAMA study published in November 2022 found that, while the in-state abortion decline in Texas exceeded out-of-state abortion increases, the out-of-state abortion data was incomplete.
Overall, it is difficult to obtain accurate data on the number of Texas women who have obtained abortions in other states after the Heartbeat Act took effect, and so analyzing the impact of the Texas Heartbeat Act on the Texas birthrate is methodologically a much stronger way to gauge its impact. This study in the Journal of the American Medical Association is a very welcome addition to the body of research and shows very nicely shows that the Texas Heartbeat Act is resulting in more children being born and in more lives saved.