In the wake of today's Supreme Court ruling allowing Idaho hospitals to provide emergency

abortions for now, questions remain about the impact of restrictions on access to abortion.

A new study focused on Texas looks at the year after its so-called

Heartbeat Act went into effect, banning all abortions after six weeks with no exceptions

for rape, incest, or fetal abnormalities.

It found a significant increase in infant deaths much higher than the rest of the country.

One of the authors of the study joins us now.

That's Professor Suzanne Bell of the Johns Hopkins

Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Professor Bell, welcome.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks, happy to be here.

So the study looks at a period from 2021 to 2022 after the Texas ban

went into place but before Roe v Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court we

should we should point out and it found infant deaths in Texas

rose nearly 13% compared to an increase of just 1.8%

in the rest of the country.

What did your studies show was driving that increase?

Our findings regarding changes in the cause of death suggest death due to fetal anomalies that were

incompatible with life were the largest source of the overall increase in infant mortality that we saw in Texas.

Death due to birth defects increased by 23% in Texas from 2021 to 2022.

Well, in the rest of the United States, they decreased by 3%.

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