Pro-Life Just Means Anti-Women

The Abortion Industrial Complex is using disputed maternal mortality statistics to justify its jihad against the state of Texas. The Guardian's Molly Redden published an article on Saturday that is getting amplified from the likes of Cecile Richards. Entitled, Texas has highest maternal mortality rate in developed world, study finds, the article draws from the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Redden's article claims a causal link to budget cuts that reduced Texas' family planning budget. The maternal mortality rate increase in Texas was not seen elsewhere. "No other state saw a comparable increase," Redden writes.

The source material is here.

The OCOG study shows that maternal mortality rates nationwide, excluding Texas and California, "rose from 18.8 in 2000 to 23.8 in 2014."

The maternal mortality rates for Texas, which hovered around 18 per 100,000 births up until 2010, doubled in 2014 to nearly 36 per 100,000 live births. At that rate, Texas may soon catch up to the District of Columbia!

Were Texas' budget cuts responsible for the increase? It seems unclear. The OCOG study was motivated to assess how "changes in pregnancy question formats" may have affected reporting rates. In particular, they note that "Analysis of the measurement change suggests that U.S. rates in the early 2000s were higher than previously reported."

In other words, maternal mortality may very well be lower, because the way we measure maternal mortality changed.

If there was a causal link, then why did the budget cuts hurt worse in Texas than in New Jersey, where the state family planning budget was totally eliminated?

And wouldn't budget cuts to family planning services cause a similar increase in infant mortality? The rate of infant mortality in Texas seems to be declining.

The OCOG study raises more questions than it answers. The measurement changes need to be quantified. And the maternal mortality has always varied between ethnic groups. Texas has tried to make it harder to get abortions, but that's usually not an issue with regards to maternal mortality.

My suggestion would be to overlay a chart showing obesity and diabetes rates with maternal mortality.