An analysis of new birth data by Georgia Tech’s School of Economics finds that the 2022 Supreme Court decision to overturn federal abortion protections has unevenly driven up birth rates in the United States. Live deliveries rose most among women of color and those living far from states where abortion remains legal.
The paper is published in the Journal of Public Economics. It is the first to examine the impact on fertility — the number of pregnancies carried to term — of the landmark Dobbs vs. Jackson's Women's Health Organization decision that ended federal abortion guarantees.
“Although it may seem obvious that abortion bans would reduce abortions and, therefore, may affect fertility, many other outside factors may lead to different outcomes,” said Mayra Pineda-Torres, a co-author on the working paper. "For example, people can get abortion pills by mail or cross state borders, so we didn't know if fertility would indeed change as a response to the decision."
To answer this question, Pineda-Torres and Daniel Dench, assistant professors at Georgia Tech’s School of Economics, and Caitlin Myers, a professor at Middlebury College, analyzed newly released birth data from the Centers for Disease Control for the first six months of 2023.
They found that states with total abortion bans had a 2.3% increase in birth rates on average compared to states without bans, resulting in an additional 32,000 annual births compared to what would have happened if Roe vs. Wade had not been overturned. Based on this finding, the researchers calculate that approximately 23% of people who sought abortions in the first half of 2023 were prevented from obtaining the procedure.
Dobbs Impact by Race, Age, and Location
Pineda-Torres, Dench, and Myers further analyzed the data by race, age, and location. In preliminary findings, they report that in states with total abortion bans, Hispanic women's fertility increased the most, by 3.7%. This was followed by fertility in Black women, which increased by 1.8%. White women experienced the smallest increase in fertility among the three groups at 1.3%.
When the researchers examined the impact of the Dobbs decision by age group, they found that women aged 25 to 29 saw the most significant increase in birth rates, followed by women in the 20 to 24 age group. Women aged 30 to 44 experienced a smaller increase in birth rates, while teens aged 15 to 19 did not experience an increase in fertility at all. This may be because teen birth rates have been consistently declining and the changes induced by Dobbs are not large enough to be statistically significant. The researchers also hypothesize that younger women are more likely to have better knowledge about the possibility of requesting abortion pills online compared to older women.
Finally, when parsed by location, the data shows that the 13 states that enacted total abortion bans all reported higher birth rates. The increase was most significant in states where the average driving distance to an abortion clinic rose the most, the researchers report. It was least pronounced in states where clinics remained accessible across state borders and the average driving distance was only slightly affected. For example, banning abortion in Texas caused the average driving distance for the procedure to lengthen by 453 miles, and birth rates rose by 5.1%. In contrast, Missouri’s ban increased the average driving distance by only 2.2 miles, and birth rates rose by 0.4%.
Long-Term Effects of the Dobbs Decision
“When women experience unplanned pregnancies and increases in fertility, they also may experience long-term repercussions for education, income, and health,” Dench says. “So, it's important to document this early evidence because it could have effects economically and in terms of women's health into the future.”
In their paper, the researchers cite decades of studies showing that legal abortion access reduces inequality and improves women's health, educational attainment, and earnings. If the Dobbs decision continues to increase fertility rates, it could halt or reverse these trends, they say.
"If future research using finalized data and additional policy variation reveals continued substantial effects on births, then we expect long-lasting and profound effects on the lives of affected pregnant people and their families, including effects on educational investment, employment, earnings, and financial security," they wrote in their paper.
"The Effects of Post-Dobbs Abortion Bans on Fertility" was published in the Journal of Public Economics in May 2024. It is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.105124
