Implementation of the strictest abortion law in the nation in 2021 was associated with worsening mental health among women, particularly younger adult women, according to a study published by JAMA Network Open.
“In September 2021, Texas implemented the Texas Heartbeat Act Senate Bill 8 (SB8), which essentially banned abortion after detection of embryonic cardiac activity,” wrote Jusung Lee, Ph.D., of the University of Texas at San Antonio, and colleagues. “Because Texas banned abortion earlier than other states, the Texas experience provides much of what is known about the consequences of abortion bans on health.”
Lee and colleagues collected responses from 15,614 adult women and 14,500 adult men in Texas who completed the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System—a federal survey that collects state-level health data—between 2012 and 2022. All included respondents were of reproductive age (18 to 44 years old).
The researchers analyzed changes in frequent mental distress—defined as 14 or more days of self-reported poor mental health during the previous 30 days—between women and men in Texas before and after SB8 implementation. To account for the COVID-19 pandemic or other unidentified events, the researchers also compared the Texas results against those of 34,559 women in five conservative states with similar COVID-19 policies that banned abortion later. They also compared the women in Texas to 14,936 women in California, which did not restrict abortion but is demographically like Texas.
On average, 14.2% of Texas women experienced frequent mental distress each year prior to SB8 implementation, compared with 21.9% in the year after implementation; among Texas men, frequent mental distress rose from 11.1% to 15%. After adjusting for differences between the two groups, the implementation of SB8 was associated with a 6.8 percentage point increase in frequent mental distress among women compared with men in the state. Further, SB8 was associated with a 5.3 percentage point increase in mental distress compared with women in other conservative states and a 7.1 percentage point increase compared with women in California.
Implementation of the law appeared to have the biggest impact on women ages 18 to 29, which was not surprising to the researchers. “Even before early abortion bans were enacted, young people reported experiencing numerous challenges in accessing abortion care, including difficulty traveling for abortion care and a lack of support from adults,” they wrote. “The increasingly restrictive policy environment creates even larger obstacles for young people seeking abortion care, a group less able to overcome barriers than their older counterparts.”
For related information, see the Psychiatric News article “Ensuring Women’s Right to Full Spectrum of Reproductive Care: We Must Do More.”
(Image: Getty Images/iStock/Joel Carillet)
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