Secular Pro-Life
  • Home
  • About
    • Meet The Team
    • Mission and Vision
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Stances
      • Abortion
      • Religion
      • Contraception
      • The Rape Exception
    • Terms and Conditions
      • Opt-out preferences
  • Content
    • Index
    • Blog
    • Presentations
      • A Secular Case Against Abortion
      • Building Bridges
      • Deconstructing Three Pro-Choice Myths
      • Overlooked Findings of the Turnaway Study
    • Research
      • Abortion Law and Abortion Rates
      • Abortion Law and Pregnancy Rates
      • Later Abortion
      • Embryonic Hearts
    • Collections
      • For the biology textbook tells me so
      • They can hear you
      • Parents can hear you
      • Our children’s heartbeats
      • Becoming Pro-Life
      • Ask An Atheist
      • LGBTQ and Pro-Life
      • Fixed that meme for you
    • Print Materials
      • 100 Pro-Life Sign Ideas
      • Overview of SPL
      • 3 Reasons to tell people you’re pro-life
      • How to talk (not fight) about abortion
      • Bridges PRC Curriculum
      • FAQ
      • Presentations overview
    • Store
  • Contact
  • Get Involved
    • Why support SPL?
    • Donor Opportunities
    • Volunteer Opportunities
    • Volunteer Survey
    • More Surveys
      • Why do you support SPL?
      • Best and Worst Abortion Arguments
      • “Ask An Atheist” Interview
      • Non-Traditional Pro-Life Survey
      • LGBT Pro-Life Survey
      • Parents experiences with prenatal screening
      • Your experiences with adoption
  • Donate
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

No, defunding Planned Parenthood did not make maternal mortality skyrocket in Texas

April 16, 2018/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by Kelsey Hazzard
In 2011, Texas redirected taxpayer funds from Planned Parenthood to federally qualified health centers and other comprehensive healthcare providers. The next year, maternal mortality in Texas allegedly skyrocketed. Pro-lifers were immediately blamed. Planned Parenthood funding had been saving lives! Post hoc, ergo propter hoc!

That explanation was unsatisfying, because Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer birth care. Nor would Planned Parenthood’s provision of contraceptives explain it; FQHCs offer contraception too, and besides, the maternal mortality rate is calculated per 100,000 births, so it should be unaffected by changes to the pregnancy rate and birth rate.

So what was causing more Texas mothers to die? And what could the pro-life movement do to prevent these deaths?

Nothing — because in fact, the maternal mortality spike was an illusion. The Washington Post reports:

For the past few years, Texas’s maternal mortality rate was so high it seemed unbelievable.

As it turns out, according to a study released this week it was, indeed, not to be believed.

This week, the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force released a study in Obstetrics & Gynecology that found the maternal morbidity figures from 2012 — which had Texas mothers dying at rates that shocked experts and the public — were based on sloppy and erroneous data collection.

So sloppy, in fact, that more than half of the deaths that were recorded as pregnancy-related that year were recorded that way in error.

Specifically, the phantom mortality increase arose from changes to Texas death certificates, which resulted in more coroners incorrectly checking a box to indicate pregnancy-related death.

A recently published report combed through this data and determined that “after all of the data-collection errors were excluded, Texas’s 2012 maternal mortality rate was corrected from 38.4 deaths per 100,000 live births to 14.6 per 100,000 live births.” That’s considerably lower than the current (2015) national average of 26.4 deaths per 100,000 births. Put another way, not only did Planned Parenthood defunding not cause a spike in maternal mortality, it’s actually safer to give birth in Texas than it is to give birth in the United States as a whole.

To be clear, even one pregnancy-related death is too many. None of this takes anything away from the fantastic pro-life initiatives, like Abide, that are working hard to improve the health of Texas mothers and babies. And as the Washington Post points out, the United States has a long way to go before it matches the maternal mortality rates of other developed countries.

Related Posts

Tags: abortion funding, debunking, maternal mortality, media bias, Planned Parenthood
Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
https://secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SecularProlife2.png 0 0 Kelsey Hazzard https://secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SecularProlife2.png Kelsey Hazzard2018-04-16 11:38:002025-01-19 19:02:08No, defunding Planned Parenthood did not make maternal mortality skyrocket in Texas
You might also like
No, courts did not say Texas can ban emergency abortions
Live near Cedar Rapids?
Is Gosnell America’s “Biggest Serial Killer”?
#HelloHyde Campaign Launches Today
La legislación provida previene el aborto principalmente previniendo el embarazo no planeado.
Tis’ the Season
Ambulance comes to Naples, FL abortion center
SPL to speak at San Jose Planned Parenthood protest this Saturday
0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Follow via Email

* indicates required

Categories

  • Ableism
  • Abortion pills
  • Administrative
  • Adoption & Foster Care
  • Biology
  • Bodily Rights
  • en español
  • Later Abortion
  • Legislation, laws, & court cases
  • Miscarriage & Pregnancy Loss
  • Personhood
  • Philosophy
  • Pro-Life Demographics
  • Rape Exception
  • Religion
  • Research
  • Speeches, Discussions, Presentations
  • SPL Emails
  • They Can Hear You
  • Top SPL Articles
  • Top SPL Graphics
  • Uncategorized
  • We Asked You Answered
  • Year In Review
  • Your Stories

Archive

It’s crucial that we demonstrate that anyone can–and everyone should–oppose abortion. Thanks to you, we are working to change minds, transform our culture, and protect our prenatal children. Every donation supports our ability to provide nonsectarian, nonpartisan arguments against abortion. Read more details here. Please donate today.

DONATE
SUBSCRIBE
© Copyright 2025 Secular Pro-Life. All rights reserved. Website Design by TandarichGroup

Related Posts

#ProtestPP returns on April 28 Secular Pro-Life has applied for 501(c)3 status
Scroll to top
Manage Consent

To provide the best experience, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may adversely affect certain features and functions.

Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}
Want to receive our email newsletter?

We’d be happy to keep in touch. Subscribe for access to our newsletter and other updates.