After US abortion rights were curtailed, more women are opting for sterilisation

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-09-12 11:30

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Anti-abortion protesters outside the Supreme Court 21 January 2022. Credit: Shawn Thew. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.no

US scientists say tubal sterilisations among women, colloquially known as 'having your tubes tied', increased in all states following the 2022 US Supreme Court decision that overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion. Abortion is now regulated by individual states, and sterilisation rates have increased the most in states that have banned or restricted abortion, the experts say. In states which have protected abortion, sterilisations increased initially following the Supreme Court decision, but not in the months since, they add. The study included nearly 5 million women from a range of US states with differing abortion laws.

Media release

From: JAMA

Tubal Sterilization Rates by State Abortion Laws After the Dobbs Decision

About The Study: This study found an increase in use of tubal sterilization in all included states after the Dobbs decision, followed by a further monthly increase in banned states and a similar but not significant tendency in limited states (but not in protected states). The study extends prior research by differentiating restrictiveness of state abortion laws.

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Research JAMA, Web page

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conference: JAMA

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Organisation/s: Columbia University Irving Medical Center, USA

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