Health
The Women Most Affected by Abortion Bans
Abortion bans successfully prevented some women from getting abortions in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, according to a detailed new study of birth data from 2023. The effects were most pronounced among women in certain groups — Black and Hispanic women, women without a college degree, and women living farthest from a clinic.
Abortion has continued to rise since the period the data covers, especially through pills shipped into states with bans. But the study identifies the groups of women who are most likely to be affected by bans.
For the average woman in states that banned abortion, the distance to a clinic increased to 300 miles from 50 miles, resulting in a 2.8 percent increase in births relative to what would have been expected without a ban.
For Hispanic women living 300 miles from a clinic, births increased 3.8 percent. For Black women, it was 3.2 percent, and for white women 2 percent.
“It really tracks, both that women who are poorer and younger and have less education are more likely to have an unintended pregnancy, and more likely to be unable to overcome the barriers to abortion care,” said Dr. Alison Norris, an epidemiology professor at Ohio State who helps lead a nationwide abortion counting effort and was not involved in the new study.
The working paper, released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, is the first to analyze detailed local patterns in births soon after the Dobbs decision in 2022, a period when abortion was declining or about flat nationwide.
Unexpectedly, abortions have increased nationwide since then. Researchers say this is evidence of unmet demand for abortions before Dobbs. Since then, telehealth and a surge in financial assistance have made it easier for women to get abortions, in both states with bans and where it remained legal.
But the new findings suggest that the assistance didn’t reach everyone. State bans appear to have prevented some women from having abortions they would have sought if they were legal.
The national increase in abortion masks that some people were “trapped by bans,” said Caitlin Myers, a professor of economics at Middlebury College and an author of the paper with Daniel Dench and Mayra Pineda-Torres at Georgia Tech. “What’s happened is an increase in inequality of access: Access is increasing for some people and not for others.”
The rise in births was small, suggesting that most women who wanted abortions had still gotten them, said Diana Greene Foster, the director of research at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the University of California at San Francisco. Still, she said, the new study was persuasive in showing the effects of bans: “I now feel more convinced that some people really did have to carry pregnancies to term.”
John Seago, the president of Texas Right to Life, said that a federal abortion ban would work better than a patchwork of state policies, and that states like Texas needed to do more to reduce out-of-state travel and mail-order abortion pills. But he did think Texas’ law was making a difference.
“We obviously are seeing the evidence that the bans are actually preventing abortions,” he said. “They’re actually saving lives.”
Previous studies have measured changes in the abortion rate, but Professor Myers said looking at the number of babies born is the most definitive way to know whether abortion bans actually work. Research from the years before Roe was overturned showed that longer distances from clinics affected abortions and births.
“This is the paper I’ve been waiting to write for years,” she said. “These are the data I was waiting for.”
The data she wanted was detailed birth certificates filed in 2023. Mothers include information about their age, race, marital status, level of education and home address in nearly every state, making demographic comparisons possible. The researchers used a statistical method that compared places with similar birthrates before Dobbs to estimate how much a ban changed the expected birthrate.
They also used county-level data to look at changes in births within states. In counties in states with bans where the distance to the nearest clinic in another state didn’t change, births increased 1 percent. In counties where the distance increased by more than 200 miles, births increased 5 percent.
In Texas, the largest state with an abortion ban, births increased more in Houston, where the nearest clinic is 600 miles away in Kansas, than they did in El Paso, where the nearest clinic is 20 miles away in New Mexico. Similarly, births increased more in the South, where states are surrounded by other states with bans, but very little in eastern Missouri, where there are abortion clinics across the border in Illinois.
The researchers also looked at appointment availability at nearby clinics, because some clinics have been overrun with people traveling from other states. They found that if women were unable to get an appointment within two weeks, births increased even more.
Still, even in places with bans that had no change in distance to the nearest clinic or appointment availability there, relative births increased slightly, which Professor Myers attributed to “a chilling effect” of bans.
The findings are in line with other research. A previous analysis, using state-level data through 2023 and a different statistical method, found that births increased 1.7 percent, and more among women who were Black or Hispanic, unmarried, without college degrees, or on Medicaid.
“Using different methods, using slightly different data, we’re coming to the same conclusion about the disparate impacts of these policies on populations,” said Suzanne Bell, a demographer at Johns Hopkins and an author of that paper. “I think that’s adding further evidence to the notion that these are real impacts that we’re capturing.”
Since the study’s county-level data ends after 2023, it’s possible that births in states with bans have decreased since then. Abortions nationwide have continued to increase, including for women in states with bans.
Doctors in states that passed so-called shield laws, which protect them from legal liability if they send pills into states with bans, began doing so in earnest during the summer of 2023. Abortions done this way would not affect birth data until 2024.
But using provisional state-level birth data from 2024, the new paper found almost no change in births from 2023. This data is less reliable, but researchers said that even with shield laws, some women are still unlikely to get an abortion — especially those with fewer resources, who may not know about telehealth abortion sites or are wary of ordering pills online.
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Feeling lonely may take a toll on older adults’ memory — but it may not speed up cognitive decline, according to a new study.
Researchers from Colombia, Spain and Sweden analyzed data from more than 10,000 adults ages 65 to 94 across 12 European countries and found those who reported higher levels of loneliness did worse on memory tests at the start of the study, according to research published this month in the journal Aging & Mental Health.
Over a seven-year period, however, memory decline occurred at a similar rate regardless of how lonely participants felt.
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“The finding that loneliness significantly impacted memory, but not the speed of decline in memory over time was a surprising outcome,” lead author Dr. Luis Carlos Venegas-Sanabria of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario said in a statement.
Loneliness may be linked to memory performance in older adults, a new study suggests. (iStock)
“It suggests that loneliness may play a more prominent role in the initial state of memory than in its progressive decline,” Venegas-Sanabria said, adding that the findings highlight the importance of addressing loneliness as a factor in cognitive performance.
The findings add to debate about whether loneliness contributes to dementia risk. While loneliness and social isolation are often considered risk factors for cognitive decline, research results have been mixed.
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The study looked at data from the long-running Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which tracked 10,217 older adults between 2012 and 2019. Participants were asked to recall words immediately and after a delay to measure memory performance.
Social isolation and loneliness could play a surprising role in cognitive health among seniors. (iStock)
Loneliness was assessed using three questions about how often participants felt isolated, left out or lacking companionship.
About 8% of participants reported high levels of loneliness at the outset. That group tended to be older, more likely to be female and more likely to have conditions such as depression.
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Researchers found that those with higher loneliness had lower scores on both immediate and delayed memory tests at baseline. Still, all groups — regardless of loneliness level — experienced similar declines in memory over time.
The results suggest loneliness may not directly accelerate the progression of memory loss, though it remains linked to poorer cognitive performance overall.
Researchers look at a brain scan at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Experts warn, however, that the findings should not be interpreted to mean loneliness is harmless.
“The finding that lonely older adults start with worse memory but don’t decline faster is actually the most interesting part of the paper, and I think it’s easy to misread,” said Jordan Weiss, Ph.D., a scientific advisor and aging expert at Assisted Living Magazine and a professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
“It likely means loneliness does its damage earlier in life, well before people show up in a study like this at 65-plus,” Weiss told Fox News Digital.
By older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold, an aging expert says. (iStock)
He suggested that by older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold.
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“By the time you’re measuring someone in their late 60s, decades of social connection patterns are already baked in,” he said.
Weiss, who was not involved in the research, added that loneliness may coincide with other health conditions, and noted that participants who felt more isolated also had higher rates of depression, high-blood pressure and diabetes. The link, he said, may reflect a cluster of health risks rather than a direct cause.
“While they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia,” a psychotherapist says. (iStock)
Amy Morin, a Florida-based psychotherapist and author, said the findings reflect a broader pattern in research on loneliness and brain health, and that the relationship may be more complex than it appears.
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“The evidence shows there’s a link between loneliness and cognitive decline but there’s no direct evidence of a cause and effect relationship,” she said. “So while they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia.”
Morin added that loneliness, which can fluctuate, may not be the root of the problem, but rather a symptom of other underlying mental or physical health issues.
Researchers suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging. (iStock)
She said staying socially and mentally engaged is crucial for overall brain health.
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“It’s important to be proactive about social activities,” Morin said. “Joining a book club, having coffee with a friend, or attending faith-based services can be a powerful way to maintain connections in older age.”
The researchers also suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.
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Research continues to uncover new details on how fasting may help extend life.
A new study published in the journal Nature Communications investigated how intermittent fasting can boost longevity in small worms often used in aging research.
Researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas compared worms that were fed normally to those that underwent a 24-hour fast in early adulthood and were then fed again, according to a press release.
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The scientists measured a variety of factors, including stored fat, gene activity related to fat metabolism and lifespan.
The results showed that the life-boosting benefit did not depend on the fasting itself but on the body’s behavior after eating again.
Experts say sustainability is key when choosing a long-term weight-loss strategy. (iStock)
Study lead Peter Douglas, associate professor of molecular biology and a member of the Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine at UT Southwestern, suggested that these discoveries “shift the focus toward a neglected side of the metabolic coin – the re-feeding phase.”
“Our data suggest that the health-promoting effects of intermittent fasting are not merely a product of the fast itself, but are dependent on how the metabolic machinery recalibrates during the subsequent transition back to a fed state,” he said.
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“Our findings bridge a gap between lipid metabolism and aging research,” he added. “By targeting aging, the single greatest risk factor for human disease, we move beyond treating isolated conditions toward a preventive model of medicine that enhances quality of life for all individuals.”
Lauri Wright, director of nutrition programs at the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health, called this a “high-quality” study that adds an “important nuance to how we think about fasting and longevity.”
Intermittent fasting typically involves limiting meals to an eight-hour daily window or fasting every other day. (iStock)
The benefits of the refeeding phase after fasting were “especially interesting,” Wright, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital.
“The researchers showed that longevity was linked to the body’s ability to turn off fat breakdown after fasting, allowing cells to restore energy balance,” she reiterated.
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“From a scientific standpoint, that’s a meaningful shift because it suggests fasting is not just about burning fat, but about metabolic flexibility.”
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Fasting may support longevity through triggering metabolic switching, enhancing cellular repair and stress resistance and improving markers like insulin sensitivity, research shows.
Limitations and cautions
Although this study provides “important insight” on the power of refeeding, Wright noted that the findings should be approached with caution, as the study was done on worms and cannot always be translated to humans.
“Additionally, it explains how a process might work in a controlled lab condition rather than real-world eating behaviors,” she added as a limitation. “Finally, the study is short-term and doesn’t give us the long-term translation on lifespan outcomes.”
The review found intermittent fasting was barely more effective than doing nothing, according to the study authors. (iStock)
Wright cautioned that fasting is “not a magic solution for longevity, and how you eat overall matters more than when you eat.”
“I advise, first and foremost, to focus on diet quality, including a variety of fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and minimally processed foods,” she said.
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For those who are considering fasting, it’s better to stick with a moderate plan — like a 12- to 14-hour overnight fast — rather than going to extremes, Wright said. After fasting, she recommends focusing on well-balanced meals.
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Several groups of people should be cautioned against fasting, according to Wright, including those with diabetes who are on insulin or hypoglycemic medications, those who are pregnant or breastfeeding, anyone with a history of eating disorders and older adults at risk of malnutrition.
Anyone considering intermittent fasting should consult with a doctor before starting.
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