Parental involvement laws, bans on taxpayer-funded abortions, informed consent laws and partial-birth abortion bans reduce the number of abortions performed within the jurisdiction of such laws, according to a new study by a post doctoral fellow at the Harvard-MIT Data Center.
“Those states that adopted pro-life legislation during the 1990s experienced larger reductions in abortion rates and ratios than those states that did not adopt such legislation,” according to LifeNews.com’s report of the study.
The study, published by the Heritage Foundation, said pro-life legislation passed by state legislatures led to the decline in the number of abortions by 17.4 percent during the 1990s.
Laws prohibiting taxpayer-funded abortions with the use of Medicaid dollars reduced the abortion rate by about 30 percent, the study showed. States that passed “Right to Know” laws informing women of the consequences of an abortion saw the abortion rate drop by 22 percent.
In an assessment of state efforts to protect women and unborn children, Americans United for Life, a bioethics law firm devoted to changing laws to protect human life, released its inaugural state report cards in mid-January. Louisiana, Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arkansas topped the list of states credited with initiatives designed to protect women, their health and their unborn children.
Alabama ranked 11th.
Vermont, Oregon, Hawaii, New Hampshire and Alaska ranked worst in their efforts to curb abortion.
(BP)
Share with others: