Infant deaths have risen in Texas since the state banned abortion. In 2022, about twenty-two hundred infants died in Texas, 11.5 percent more than in 2021. This is attributed in part to an increase in overall births since the ban. But the spike in infant deaths caused by genetic and birth defects was 21.6 percent, suggesting “that many Texas patients who would have otherwise terminated pregnancies with fatal defects are being forced to carry them to term.”43
