The lifesaving impact of recently enacted pro-life laws

(Charlotte Lozier Institute) The following is an excerpt from the original article, originally posted at the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

[...] After the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, state laws that protected unborn babies before 24 weeks of gestation were routinely struck down by various courts.

However, on September 1, 2021, the Texas Heartbeat Act took effect. This legislation protects unborn babies in Texas after a fetal heartbeat is detectable, which science has proven can happen as early as the sixth week of gestation.[2] This marked the first instance since Roe that a law protecting unborn babies well before viability was in effect for an extended amount of time.

Additionally, after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women‘s Health Organization, it became much easier for states to enact laws that protect the unborn.

Currently, 13 states protect all unborn babies and four have a Heartbeat Law in effect that protects the unborn after a fetal heartbeat can be detected.[3]

Some question the impact of these recently enacted pro-life laws. Abortion estimates released by the  Guttmacher Institute[4] show abortions increasing each year from 2023 to 2025. Similarly, estimates released by the Society of Family Planning [5] have found that the incidence of abortion has been increasing in the United States since 2022.

However, there are reasons for concern about these abortion estimates. The most recent estimates released by the Society of Family Planning indicate that in 2025, 28% of all abortions were done via telehealth.[6] Estimating the exact number of abortions done by telehealth is difficult. Some women who order abortion drugs online may change their minds and decide to carry their pregnancy to term. There are anecdotes that some women order abortion drugs for future use.

Furthermore, even if the estimates from Guttmacher and the Society of Family Planning are correct and abortion numbers have been increasing in recent years, it is still possible that newly enacted pro-life laws are still preventing abortions and saving lives. Guttmacher data indicates that the U.S. abortion rate began to increase in 2017, five years before Dobbs.[7] As such, it is possible that absent these pro-life laws, the overall number of abortions performed in the United States could be higher.

Regardless, during the post-Dobbs era, there have been clear difficulties with accurately measuring the number of abortions that are performed. However, one way to effectively measure the impact of recently enacted pro-life laws is to analyze birth data. If the number of births increase seven months after a pro-life law takes effect,[8] that is powerful evidence that some women are forgoing abortion and instead carrying pregnancies to term.

This Charlotte Lozier Institute policy analysis will summarize the findings of six different studies that analyze state-level birth data to estimate the impact of recently enacted pro-life laws. Three of these studies specifically analyze the impact of the Texas Heartbeat Act (New 2022,[9] Bell et al. 2024,[10] University of Houston 2024[11]). The other three studies analyze the impact of multiple state-level pro-life laws (Dench et al. 2024,[12] Bell et al. 2025,[13] Springer 2026[14]). Each of these studies finds very strong statistical evidence that these newly enacted state level pro-life laws are significantly associated with increased state birth rates. Overall, there is a strong consensus among economists, political scientists, and public health scholars that recently enacted pro-life laws are correlated with increased birthrates – suggesting that these pro-life laws are saving lives.

[...] Three studies have analyzed Texas birth data to assess the impact of the Texas Heartbeat Act....

Read the entire analysis at the Charlotte Lozier Institute.