As lawmakers make it increasingly difficult for women to access safe, legal abortion care in the state, today researchers with the independent Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP) released information showing that at least 100,000 Texas women have attempted to self-induce an abortion. TxPEP’s study briefs are available here and here. Following is today’s press release from TxPEP:
AUSTIN (November 17, 2015) — Today, the Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP) released first-of-its-kind research that finds at least 100,000 Texas women ages 18 to 49 (estimated to be 1.7% of Texas women of reproductive age) have ever attempted to end a pregnancy on their own without medical assistance. Other TxPEP research suggests self-induction may be more common in Texas compared to other states. This is the first time a statistic on self-induction in the general population has ever been calculated.
In an analysis of a statewide survey that controlled for sociodemographic factors, including age and reported history of abortion, researchers found that Latinas near the US-Mexico border and women who report barriers to accessing reproductive health care were significantly more likely to have attempted abortion self-induction themselves or know someone who had attempted to end a pregnancy as compared to non-Latinas in Texas or those who did not report barriers to reproductive health care.
Researchers believe that these two groups of women are likely to see the most direct increases in self-induced abortion rates should Texas’ HB2 law, a sweeping measure that imposes numerous restrictions on access to abortion, be fully implemented. Since HB2 was enacted in 2013, more than half of the facilities providing abortion care in Texas have closed. Last month, TxPEP released research revealing substantial increases in average wait times to schedule an appointment for an abortion– sometimes up to 20 days – at clinics in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin.
Dr. Daniel Grossman, a TxPEP co-investigator and Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, said:
“This is the latest body of evidence demonstrating the negative implications of laws like HB2 that pretend to protect women but in reality place them, and particularly women of color and economically disadvantaged women, at significant risk.
“As clinic-based care becomes harder to access in Texas, we can expect more women to feel that they have no other option and take matters into their own hands.”
The researchers also performed interviews with women who had attempted to self-induce an abortion in recent years in Texas. According to the study, a common thread among these women was that poverty layered upon one or more additional obstacles left them feeling that they had no other option. Almost all of the women interviewed contacted or considered contacting a clinic at some point during their abortion process. While there was no one reason that exclusively drove women to this outcome, four primary reasons for self-induction included: financial constraints to travel to a clinic or to pay for the procedure, local clinic closures, recommendation from a close friend or family member to self-induce, or efforts to avoid the stigma or shame of going to an abortion clinic, especially if they had had prior abortions.
Currently the United States Supreme Court is considering Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole to decide the fate of HB2. Should the Court decide to uphold the law, Texas will be left with only 10 abortion clinics in a state with 5.4 million women of reproductive age, and leave 500 miles between San Antonio and the New Mexico border without a single clinic.
About the Report
Data for this report comes from a study commissioned by TxPEP and conducted by GfK using its KnowledgePanel. KnowledgePanel is a nationally representative, probability-based online non-volunteer access panel. GfK sampled households in the KnowledgePanel and then invited 1,397 non-institutionalized Texas-resident women between the ages of 18 and 49 to participate in the survey; 779 women completed it. Data collection took place over 5 weeks from December 2014 to January 2015. In addition, TxPEP researchers performed interviews with 18 women who reported attempting abortion self-induction within the prior five years while living in Texas. Women were recruited from abortion clinics or as part of interviews performed in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
About TxPEP
The Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP) is a five-year, comprehensive effort to document and analyze the impact of the measures affecting reproductive health passed by the 82nd and 83rd Texas Legislatures. The project team includes researchers from The University of Texas at Austin’s Population Research Center; Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) at the University of California, San Francisco; Ibis Reproductive Health; and the University of Alabama-Birmingham.
The release of this research comes just days after the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will hear a challenge to a 2013 Texas law — House Bill 2 — that imposes onerous and medically unnecessary restrictions on health care clinics that provide abortion services. Since the passage of HB 2, the number of abortion clinics in Texas has dropped from 41 to 19. Fully implementing the law would lead to the closure of half of the remaining abortion clinics across the state.
Medical experts have pointed out repeatedly that the restrictions in HB 2 are medically unnecessary. Supporters of that law and other anti-abortion measures passed by state lawmakers have boasted that they are trying to end women’s access to abortion care in Texas.
23 Comments
Self-induced abortion for women of my grandmothers’ generation (early 20th century, when abortion was illegal) was commonplace. In fact, my grandmother DIED from a “coat hanger” abortion (probably administered by a woman in her community experienced with such from the Old Country) because of the resulting infection. She already had three young children and felt her family could not support another child. Those three young children (one of whom was my mother) were left motherless because abortions were not performed in medical settings then. My grandmother was 36 years old when she died.
History is repeating itself. Hopefully jnow at least antibiotics are readily available to help with some complications of self- (or friend-) administered abortion.
Memo to “Pro-Lifers” — if you are truly pro-life, then why aren’t you protesting all the executions conducted in the state of Texas. Weren’t those convicted felons cute little fetuses at one point? Why is it OK to “abort” them in adulthood — waaaaay past that 20-week mark, wouldn’t ya say?
And if you pay federal taxes, then you are supporting the killing our military does in the name of “peace” and “national security.” Really, financing the dropping of bombs and air strikes is pro-life?!?!?! If you are truly pro-life then you should refuse to pay 18% of your tax total so you don’t subsidize the 18% of the federal budget that goes to defense.
Think about it. Yes, THINK!
Dont confuse apples and oranges. Treason and first degree murder are the grounds. Abortion is neither.
What are the apples and what are the oranges? Ever heard “Thou shalt not kill”? Or “Judge not…”? Why are you so opposed to a woman’s deciding to terminate HER pregnancy but perfectly comfortable with the state of Texas terminating the lives of convicted criminals. I’m not saying set the criminals free; I’m just saying don’t kill them.
Well, no Beverly, my problem with all of this is why don’t the men and women use contraceptives. There isn’t anything immoral about a contraceptive.
The other thing is that who is paying for it?
It does get pricey. I sure don’t believe I need to be paying for other peoples choices. And that’s what taxes do.
It is a complex issue to be sure but in some cases both sides are very flawed.
The law already bars your tax dollars from paying for abortions. Moreover, there are myriad reasons why people don’t use contraception. One is that abstinence-only groups have convinced some teens that contraception doesn’t work. Another is that Texas lawmakers have made it harder for low-income women to get contraception.
Dan,
Are there statistics on whether the majority are married or unmarried?
I guess my problem is that I didn’t get anyone pregnant in high school or college and waited for marriage. It really isn’t that hard to do. With our sex saturated society back alley abortions are just on of the many consequences for that kind of immorality.
It isn’t that it is a worse sin or anything like that but the Bible does say that the consequences for sexual sins are are unique.
Teens don’t need contraceptions unless they are married.
Dear Amazed…yes, you are indeed amazing. What part of “horny teenager” don’t you understand? Our species has evolved (or was created by The Big Guy, whatever) to ensure the most successful reproduction rate humanly possible for perpetuation of said species. You don’t want 60-year-old men fertilizing 42-year-old women — the product of such matings aren’t ideal (birth defects, prematurity, miscarriage, etc.).
As hormone levels rise in teenagers (especially males), the urge to copulate, ejaculate, whatever-ate rises wildly. To assume for a second that the average teenage boy will subscribe to abstinence while his young mind focuses on sex sex sex every 5 mins. is RIDICULOUS! The state of TX or the federal govt or both should finance the placement of bins of condoms in schools, convenience stores, bars, barber shops, beauty shops, bowling alleys, theatres — anywhere the population flows through — so it will be easy easy easy to grab some condoms to ASSURE (within a very strong percentage) that unintended pregnancies will not result. No unintended pregnancy = NO NEED FOR AN ABORTION. Get it?
John,
Govt shouldn’t be involved. If a teenager gets his or her hands on birth control they can answer for it. I wish they wouldn’t but they will. I am not not going to condemn them but they are asking for trouble.
“Asking for trouble” by using birth control? Really? Do you know how much “trouble” an unwanted baby is to a 16-year-old? Why are you so committed to facilitating unwanted pregnancy? Why are you so annoyed that responsible people (teenagers are people, too) are choosing when to create a pregnancy rather than leaving it to chance? Oh, and condoms help mightily with preventing certain diseases. But maybe getting those diseases “serves ’em right”??????
I don’t know the stats on whether the majority are married or unmarried, Amazed. You might want people to wait until marriage to have sex, but there are also lots of low-income married couples who want to avoid pregnancies they can’t afford. How realistic is it to assume they’ll abstain from sex? And are you comfortable seeing even more of your tax dollars go to paying to support the children of low-income families and unmarried people (through Medicaid and other programs)? Because that’s what happens when we make it harder to get contraception — the number of unplanned pregnancies goes up, as do the costs of programs that help those children. The number of abortions goes up as well.
“There isn’t anything immoral about a contraceptive.”
Unless you one of a billion Catholics, then it’s a SIN! A SIN! And you will burn! Bwahahahahahha!
Oh, wait, I forgot. After you SIN, SIN, SIN you can confess, drop a dollar in the box and 5 Hail Mary’s later you’re good to go.
Have any of you fundies ever given thought to why a woman seeks an abortion?
Of course not. The poor are poor because, as too many preachers say, they WANT to be poor.
You miserable people only give a damn about fetuses. You put a woman through the agony of child birth only because YOUR religion sucks.
You do a great job of pretending to do what God wants you to do but have never bothered to consider that a child that is born into poverty will probably never get OUT of poverty.
We Americans think we’re so freaking wonderful because we’re RELIGIOUS. Steer stool!
I am NOT religious and don’t WANT to be religious. I’d much rather do what my bible says rather than be RELIGIOUS.
Or as Scrooge said, BAH HUMBUG.
Why are they having abortions in the first place?
That you have to ask that question suggests you wouldn’t care what the answer is anyway, Amazed. Regardless, a woman has no obligation to justify the medical care she chooses.
Actually Dan that was a very bad question. I apologize. My whole deal with this issue is that while I am against abortion I am not going to protest at a clinic or anything like that because in my mind humans are agents of will and they can decide what they want to do.
I don’t how all this got to be in the public arena. Politicians don’t need to legislate morality on any level.
Dan,
The one thing about the question that wasn’t clear was that my point in asking was whether or not people are having flings and hook ups casually. I am less sympathetic there.
I am a little more empathetic with poor marrieds. Lets face it the poor don’t have the resources.
What can we do? I don’t want people to die in back alleys or have deductables so high they bankrupt themselves trying to get appropriate medical care.
Because they cannot AFFORD to have another child. It angers me that people just don’t get it. They are NOT pro-life, they are pro-fetus. The instant that fetus becomes a new-born, all interest in life goes down the drain.
Abortion is legal in this country. But RELIGIOUS PEOPLE balk at that. Why? They make laws that are pretty much prohibited by the first amendment, but people like former governor Perry and our current moron try to put religion before common sense. Does that answer your question?
These repubs in Texass don’t care one bit about women in general, and even less if the woman is poor, black or Hispanic. Let’s hope the SC will uphold the law and stop these crazy bastards!
I think you mean strike down the law, Rhonda. And we hope so, too.
In the name of humanity who do you think you are to force women to go back to back alley abortionists? You people disgust me. You do not give a damn about the infant, you just want YOUR religious garbage forced on others. You are NOT pro-life, you are pro-fetus. Do you give a damn if the mother cannot afford to properly care for the unwanted baby? Hell no. You only care for your religious nonsense.
Does your religion tell you to feed the poor? Mine does.
Isaiah 58:10 ESV If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.
Proverbs 28:27 ESV Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse.
Proverbs 22:9 ESV Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor.
You funny-mentalists disgust me because rather than follow up on a poor woman’s situation you prefer to judge them and in some cases you call the child welfare people and tear the child from the mother and mom goes to jail for being a bad parent.
I pity you all for what you are doing. Admit that you only care about the fetus and not the mother.
And the point?
I’ll not reply because you’re just another troll who plays around rather than talk intelligently about anything.