Unintended Consequences of the Texas 'Heartbeat' Law
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What you are seeing is neonatal (that's within 28 days of birth) and infant (within 1 year of birth) mortality rates over time in Texas.
There's a pretty clear increase after the law went into effect.Putting some numbers to it, in 2022, the infant mortality rate increased by 12.9% in Texas, while it increased by 1.8% in the rest of the United States. The neonatal mortality rate went up by 10.4% in Texas and by 1.6% in the rest of the United States.
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so they're delivering babies that they know will be at high risk of dying soon, and without the law, those babies would have been aborted?
@Horace said in Unintended Consequences of the Texas 'Heartbeat' Law:
without the law, those babies would have been aborted?
THat's the way I read it.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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It might be unintended, but is it unexpected?
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@Horace said in Unintended Consequences of the Texas 'Heartbeat' Law:
without the law, those babies would have been aborted?
THat's the way I read it.
@George-K said in Unintended Consequences of the Texas 'Heartbeat' Law:
@Horace said in Unintended Consequences of the Texas 'Heartbeat' Law:
without the law, those babies would have been aborted?
THat's the way I read it.
So there can be a higher infant mortality rate, but with more children born healthy overall.
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It’s like saying legalizing fentanyl helped drop the crime rate dramatically.
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Up here in Canada, neonatal beds, staff, resources are limited. There’s a continual push to discharge prems earlier and earlier to make space/adjust staffing for complex admissions. Even in your U.S. system, with your huge units, teams and technology, I can’t help but wonder if states such as Texas now have to prioritize more of these genetic/congenital/complex births (those who may have been aborted) as NICU admissions and discharge/transfer out other babes sooner. This taxes hospital systems, and most importantly, it increases stressors for all families with neonates in NICUs.
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