Texas famously slashed funding for reproductive health clinics in the state by two thirds, which caused more than 80 clinics to shut down. This reduced health services to women by half across the state. Texas also defunded all Planned Parenthood clinics completely (regardless of whether they provided abortion services).
The result? The number of women who died due to complications related to pregnancy doubled in the state in just two years. Texas now has the highest mortality rate for pregnancy in the developed world. To put that in perspective, the probability of dying from a pregnancy is more than ten times higher in Texas than your chances of dying from terrorism in the entire world.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world managed to reduce the mortality rate from pregnancy. Similar defunding efforts in other states caused to that rate go up around 27% for the entire US. The exception to this was California, which has similar demographics to Texas but fully funds reproductive health. As a result, the maternal mortality rate declined in California.
Republican efforts to cut funding for women’s health has had very real, and very deadly, results. Now, how are they actually going to “Make America Safe”?
