56% in Texas. 21% Decrease Elsewhere.
From 2019 to 2022, maternal mortality in Texas rose 56%. During the same period, the national rate rose 11%. In states that did not ban abortion, maternal mortality fell 21%.
+56% maternal mortality in Texas after the ban. -21% in states without bans. Same time period. Same country.
The Gender Equity Policy Institute published the analysis. GEPI President Nancy Cohen said there is “only one explanation for this staggering difference.” All the research points to Texas’s abortion ban as the primary driver.
Texas banned abortion care as early as five weeks into pregnancy in September 2021, nearly a year before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The Racial Disparity
Among white women in Texas, the maternal mortality rate nearly doubled, from 20 per 100,000 to 39.1 per 100,000. The increase among white women was 95%. The ban did not create the existing racial disparities in maternal health. It made outcomes worse for everyone and the data shows it.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health confirmed the pattern across all states with bans. A Tulane study found higher maternal mortality rates in states with more abortion restrictions. The correlation holds across multiple research teams using different methodologies.
Why Bans Increase Maternal Deaths
Abortion bans do not only prevent elective abortions. They create confusion and delay around emergency care. When a pregnancy becomes life-threatening, doctors in ban states must weigh the risk of prison against the immediacy of the patient’s condition. The law criminalizes the procedure. The medical emergency does not wait for a legal opinion.
Doctors in Texas have described cases where patients were sent home from emergency rooms because their conditions were not yet severe enough to meet the legal exception. They returned sicker. Some did not return.
Idaho lost 35% of its OB-GYNs after its ban. The doctors who treat the most dangerous pregnancies were among the first to leave. The 116 rural hospital maternity closures compound the problem. Fewer doctors, fewer hospitals, and a law that criminalizes the procedure they are trained to perform.
14 States
14 states enforce total or near-total abortion bans. 62.7 million women and girls live in those states. 155,000 traveled out of state for care in 2024. The 56% maternal mortality increase is measured only in Texas. The full picture across all ban states is still emerging.
Read more on the Reproductive Rights hub and the abortion travel brief.