Study finding many are 'fleeing' states with abortion bans is 'unpersuasive,' scholar says
A study making the rounds in the media claims that people are fleeing states that have passed laws against abortion following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade. However, a pro-life researcher believes the study fails to account for several factors.
The National Bureau of Economic Research published a study this month titled "Are People Fleeing States with Abortion Bans?," which analyzed population flows using change-of-address data from the U.S. Postal Service.
Researchers behind the study, led by Daniel L. Dench of the Georgia Institute of Technology, concluded that 13 states that enacted abortion restrictions have lost a net 36,000 residents every quarter since the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling in June 2022 that ruled abortion is not a constitutional right.
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The study authors purported to find the effects are more prominent among single-person households than family households, suggesting that the effects are more significant among young adults.
Michael New, an assistant professor of social research at The Catholic University of America and a senior associate scholar at the pro-life research organization Charlotte Lozier Institute, highlighted several flaws he found regarding the study's data.
"First, not everyone who moves files a change-of-address card," New told The Christian Post in a statement. "The study also only considers data up until the second quarter of 2023. It does not consider data from 2024 or the last six months of 2023."
New pointed out further issues with the study in an article published Sunday by The National Review. According to New, the study appears to be missing data, an observation that prompted him to question the results further.
As New noted, for privacy reasons, "the U.S. Postal Service discloses only aggregate change-of-address data for ZIP codes where more than ten people reported a change of address."
The study authors concluded that the data indicates 13 states lost residents over abortion restrictions when several of these laws did not immediately go into effect after the Dobbs ruling.
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau does not match the findings, New adds.
Assessing U.S. Census Bureau data released this month, New found that 13 of the 16 states with near-total abortion bans or laws banning abortion when the unborn child's heartbeat becomes detectable experienced population increases in fiscal 2024.
These increases were because of interstate migration, according to the data analyzed by New.
"The only states with strong pro-life laws in effect that lost population because of interstate migration were Louisiana and Mississippi," New wrote.
Data from the census also found that states with permissive abortion policies, including California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois and Maryland, lost population due to interstate migration in fiscal 2024, New stated.
"Ever since Dobbs, academic researchers have worked overtime to try to find evidence of the negative impact of pro-life laws," New told CP. "So far, they have not found much. This new NBER study is just the latest unpersuasive effort by researchers to claim that pro-life laws cause negative policy outcomes."
The authors behind the study for the National Bureau of Economic Research did not immediately respond to The Christian Post's request for comment.
In 2023, several media outlets reported on another report that claimed Texas' abortion ban was behind a spike in infant deaths.
A CNN report at the time cited data from the Texas Department of State Health Services, showing that around 2,200 infants died in the state in 2022, an 11.5% increase from the previous year.
While the article appeared to imply that the increase was due to the Texas Heartbeat Act, enacted in 2021, the report acknowledged that Texas experienced more than 10,000 more births than expected.
Illegal immigration and the COVID-19 pandemic's disruptions to prenatal care are other potential reasons for the increase in infant deaths, New contends.
"Additionally, the reporter engages in some statistical sleight of hand. While infant deaths increased in Texas in 2022, so did births," New wrote in a July 2023 article for The National Review.
The pro-life researcher asserted that it would be more appropriate to analyze the infant mortality rate instead, which, according to his calculations, rose by 6.6% in 2022.
"Furthermore, it should also be noted that the infant mortality rate in Texas in 2022 was well within recent historical norms," the scholar noted. "In fact, the Texas infant-mortality rate was actually lower in 2022 than in any year from 2007 to 2017. That, of course, receives no mention in the CNN article."
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
