States that ban abortions are spending millions more to help mothers and their babies through nutritional assistance programs, according to new research examining the effects of post-Dobbs abortion bans that save babies.
The information is a refutation of the false claim that pro-life states banning abortions don’t care about mo0ms or babies after birth.
A study by University of Kansas economics doctoral candidate Lilly Springer, who supports abortion, found that states implementing total abortion bans by the start of 2023 experienced a 1.6% increase in the overall birth rate.
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Those states also saw 4.3% and 2.1% increases in monthly participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) among postpartum women and formula-fed infants, respectively. That’s because many women with financial needs are having babies instead of abortions and need help and support from state programs.
The changes translated to an additional $6.9 million in WIC food costs in 2023 for states with bans.
“Inherently, the types of states that ban abortion are different than the types of states that don’t,” Springer said. “So there are all these little differences between how they support their health care systems, the types of funding they offer to social safety net programs and the other types of support they provide.”
Springer’s article, titled “Downstream Effects of Post-Dobbs Abortion Bans: Birth Rates and WIC,” appears in the journal Economic Inquiry. It used the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision as a natural experiment to assess the impacts.
The research showed the birth rate increase applied across education levels, including women with a high school diploma as their highest educational attainment and those with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
WIC is a federally funded program administered by the states that provides nutritional assistance to low-income pregnant and postpartum women and young children. Springer noted that greater participation reflects increased demand following higher birth rates in ban states.
Pro-life advocates have long maintained that protecting unborn children should go hand in hand with strong support for mothers and infants. This research demonstrates that states with abortion bans are seeing measurable increases in births and are responding with greater investment in programs that help nourish new mothers and their babies.
