At least 100,000 women tried home abortions amid Texas restrictions
CHICAGO, USA (AFP) — At least 100,000 women in Texas have tried to end a pregnancy without help from a doctor and that number is expected to rise as a result of restrictive laws, a new study found.
Women took herbs, hormones, drugs, and even blows to the stomach to try to end their pregnancies, according to the study published last Tuesday.
“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,” said study author Daniel Grossman, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco.
The study comes just days after the Supreme Court agreed last Friday to review the state’s curbs on abortion rights, its first case on the highly sensitive topic since 2007.
Among the Texas restrictions in focus is a 2013 law, passed by a Republican-controlled legislature and signed by then-governor Rick Perry, which imposes conditions that have already led to the closure of roughly half the 41 abortion clinics in the state.
Texas will be left with only 10 abortion providers for 5.4 million women of reproductive age — one in 12 of whom would have to drive over 100 miles (160 kilometres) to access a clinic — should the challenged provisions be upheld.
This is the first time a broad statistic on self-induced abortion has been calculated, the Texas Policy Evaluation Project said.
Previous studies have found that two per cent of women seeking medical abortions nationwide — and seven per cent of women seeking medical abortions in Texas — had tried to end a pregnancy on their own before going to a clinic.
This study used a survey of Texas women aged 18 to 49 to try to determine the rate among all women of reproductive age.
Data collection occurred over a period of five weeks between December 2014 and January 2015. Some 1,397 women were asked to participate in the survey, with 779 completing it.
Some 1.7 per cent of respondents said they had tried to end a pregnancy on their own, which, when extrapolated to the population at large, would mean at least 100,000 women.
However, the researchers cautioned that the true number is likely significantly higher since women tend to underreport abortions in surveys.
One in five respondents said they knew a woman who had tried to self-induce an abortion.
The Supreme Court’s decision is expected next June, in the midst of a presidential campaign.
Most of similar laws passed by various states purportedly aim to protect women’s health, but nearly all have the effect of limiting abortions.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights but whose research on the subject is widely credited, US states adopted 231 legal restrictions on abortion from 2011 to 2014.
