(NRLC) A couple of weeks ago, we pointed out how that Florida’s “Heartbeat Law” had ended up saving not just unborn lives in Florida but those of unborn children in surrounding southern states who had been sending women across the border. Florida’s new law got rid of a critical logistical and geographical abortion haven in the Southern U.S. that the industry had been able to use as an “oasis” in one of the country’s most expansive abortion “deserts.”
Now there is new information from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute that there was a big drop in Iowa when similar legislation went into effect there.
Iowa’s Heartbeat Law, effectively limiting abortion to the first six weeks of pregnancy, went into effect on July 29th of this year, leading to an immediate drop. As measured by Guttmacher’s “Monthly Abortion Provision Study,” relaying monthly data from recognized “providers,” the number of abortions in Iowa went from a monthly average of about 400 a month in the first six months of the year to 250 a month in August, the first full month after the law went into effect.
This means a drop of 38% as a result of the law, with as many as 150 babies a month being spared the abortionist’s knife or deadly poison! Florida saw a similar decrease after its legislation went into effect, with abortions dropping by about a third.
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Isaac Maddow-Zimet, Guttmacher Institute data scientist and project lead, lamented that “Iowa is the latest state to demonstrate the devastating impact that six-week bans have on abortion access. Whether in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia or now in Iowa, every time one of these bans is implemented, data show a sharp decrease in the number of clinician-provided abortions.”
Of course, we know that some of these women were paid to travel to other neighboring states and get abortions there, and that a number may have ordered abortion pills over the internet to be delivered to their homes. This will continue to be a challenge in Iowa, Florida, and elsewhere.
But we also know, from anecdotal and statistical information from other states, that there are many women who, finding abortion an option no longer available in their community, choose to stay home and have and raise their babies.
The fight is far from over. Dobbs did not provide absolute victory but an opportunity to finally put our pro-life principles into more profound practical effect.
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Editor's note: Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., is National Right to Life's Director of Education & Research. This article was published by National Right To Life News and is reprinted with permission.
