For the first time in 15 years, babies having babies have increased by 2% since Texas implemented its six-week abortion ban, according a recently published report by the University of Houston Institute for Research on Women, Gender & Sexuality.
The year-over-year increase in 2022 was most pronounced among Hispanic women ages 25-44, whose fertility rate jumped 8%. This highlights potential differences in access to contraception and out-of-state abortion care, said Elizabeth Gregory, director of the institute doing the study and a UH English professor.
"We may be seeing the effect of older Hispanic women who might previously have sought abortions — perhaps because they already had children and were already struggling to support their family financially," she wrote. "And now they will have more people to feed — it could push families into more poverty."
- Non-Hispanic Black women ages 15-44 saw a 0.6% decline in fertility rates
- Non-Hispanic white women saw a 2% decline.
- Hispanic women had 5.1% higher fertility rates in 2022 compared with 2021.
