When States Restrict Abortion, More Kids Wind Up in Foster Care

Again and again, "pro-life" places are the worst for women and children.

A new study published this week in JAMA Pediatrics found that, even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, states that implemented restrictive abortion laws saw an 11% increase in the number of children placed in foster care. That amounts to thousands and thousands of children whose parents could not care for them, would not care for them, or tried to care for them but were deemed unfit to do so.

It's not a coincidence that these “pro-life” states are the quickest to destroy families – particularly Black families – and simply take children from their parents rather than supporting parents to build the families they want with the resources they need.

We know what happens when women seek out abortions but can’t get them: We know that women are more likely to be tied to abusive partners, are more likely to be stuck in poverty, are more likely to need social assistance, are more likely to experience certain mental health challenges, are more likely to have serious health issues, and are more likely to die in pregnancy, childbirth, or soon thereafter. But we also know quite a bit about what happens to children when their mothers aren’t able to get abortions – to children who were already in the world, and to the children women didn’t want to bring into it. Both of those groups – the children women were forced to have, and the siblings of children women were forced to have – do far worse than children who were wanted and welcomed. Children of women denied abortions have poorer maternal bonds, are less likely to reach development milestones, and are more likely to live in poverty. Women who are able to get abortions are more likely than those forced to carry a pregnancy to term against their will to have a wanted child later on — in other words, the forced pregnancy and childbearing means that women forced into motherhood end up less likely to have wanted children later (they’re also less likely to end up partnered).

And this JAMA study suggests that the children of women forced to continue pregnancies are also more likely to be taken from their families and placed in foster care.