News emerged that Texas' abortion rate made a drastic decrease as of last year, after several abortion clinics was shut down. Huffington Post then reported that after Texas' anti-abortion law went into effect last November, 2014 the number of legal abortions dropped by 13 percent as of a new study that was released by Texas Policy evaluation Project last Wednesday.
As per the reports, it was stated that "number of reproductive-age women living more than 200 miles from a provider has increased nearly 30-fold over the past year, since 19 of the 41 clinics in Texas have had to shut down as a result of Texas' many new restrictions on abortion clinics. And while the overall abortion rate has dropped dramatically, second-trimester abortions have gone slightly up as a percentage of all abortions, suggesting women are being forced to wait later into their pregnancies to have the procedure." [Huffpost]
Though abortion rates may have decreased, Daniel Grossman, the author of the study and vice president for research at Ibis Reproductive Health stated self-abortion however is becoming a problem.
"researchers suspect that self-induced abortion will rise in Texas as access to clinic-based care becomes more difficult, historically, few Texas women have travelled out of state, but more women may be forced to do so given the long distances many women need to travel to access a provider in Texas, this additional travel certainly raises the cost to women of obtaining an abortion."
As per Vox, after abortion clinics have shut down, more than 100,000 Texan women engaged in self-induced abortion, which can sometimes increase numerous health risks, including infections.
Closing down abortion clinics arouses concerns in various women's group as pro-choice advocates are concerned that women that don't have access to an abortion clinic might take matters into her own hands. They may use safe and effective methods, it still does not spare then from complications.
