Strict abortion laws and maternity care deserts in Texas contribute to poor outcomes for women.
New Study
A national women’s health nonprofit recently released a new report that shows Texas as one of the lowest-performing states for women’s healthcare outcomes.
Released Thursday morning, the Commonwealth Fund’s 2024 State Scorecard on Women’s Health and Reproductive Care includes data on maternal mortality, insurance access, and various other factors across all 50 states and Washington D.C. With Mississippi ranking at the very bottom, Texas was a close second for having the worst health outcomes for women.
Texas has banned abortion in all circumstances, excluding if a doctor deems it necessary in order to save the mother’s life, making it one of the states with the strictest abortion laws across the board.
The data for the Commonwealth Fund study was collected and interpreted by a team of specialists, and Dr. David Radley helped throughout the process.
He said that states with the strictest abortion policies, such as Texas, Oklahoma, and Mississippi, also have the fewest maternity and obstetric care providers.
Radley stated, “There’s concern that abortion bans or limits will further reduce the number of providers offering maternity care owing to increased risk of legal action that providers face, especially when state laws are ambiguous.”
Maternity Care Deserts
The March of Dimes released another report that found that 46% of counties in Texas are considered “maternity care deserts,” where there are no available maternity care centers or obstetricians.
March of Dimes found that women seeking care in a “maternity care desert” travel on average 30 miles up to 70 miles to go to the nearest birthing hospital.
Access to maternal healthcare is not the only issue that Texas is facing. The report found that they also rank last for healthcare access and affordability, with 22% of women aged 15-44 without healthcare coverage.
27% of women aged 15-44 reported not seeing a doctor when they needed to due to the inability to afford it. Generally, pregnant women in Texas are eligible for Medicaid.
Unfortunately, this does not make up for years and years without insurance before becoming pregnant.
The study author and vice president of the Commonwealth Fund, Sara Collins said, “It means that women enter their pregnancy having had less access to health care, particularly if they’re poor or low income, and in a poorer health situation than they would have been in had they had health insurance coverage”.
Radley agrees, saying that the disparities in insurance access and prior care are a huge reason that Texas ranks as one of the highest for maternal mortality.
Radley said, “We know from other research and reporting that inadequate access to health services before, during and after pregnancy, combined with disparities in socioeconomic status, underlying health and quality of care, have helped to drive the maternal mortality rate in the US higher than that of other high income countries”.
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