A figure commonly cited to compare the risks of pregnancy and abortion in the U.S. could be grossly underestimating the risk of death from pregnancy, according to a new analysis.

The research, published Jan. 21 in the journal JAMA Network Open, suggests that the risk of pregnancy-related death might be at least 44 times higher than the risk of abortion-related death. Previously, pregnancy was estimated to carry a roughly 14 times higher risk of death, making the new estimate over three times higher.

"It was already fairly alarming that you face a 14-times greater risk of death from continuing a pregnancy [compared to getting an abortion]," lead study author Maria Steenland, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Health, told Live Science. "But the statistics we report here suggest that this risk is really much, much higher."

The updated figure could help steer conversations surrounding abortion access in the United States, the study authors hope.

"What we're showing in the paper is quite simple: Taking away the option to end a pregnancy exposes people to a much greater risk of death," she said.

A stat based on 20-year old data

When tracing the original estimate of risk back to its source, Steenland and her colleagues realized the statistic was based on a single 2012 study using data that is now almost 20 years old.

That study looked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System for records of deaths that had happened within a year of birth; the data covered about 32,350,000 live births in the United States, between 1998 and 2005. Those data were compared with records of abortions-related deaths collected by the CDC across those same years, which totaled to 65. That was out of about 10 million total abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research nonprofit that monitors abortion surveillance data in the U.S. and globally.

"You don't have to know a lot about maternal health in the U.S. to think, 'Perhaps that statistic has changed since then,'" Steenland said. A quick "back of the envelope" calculation tipped the researchers off that this ratio might now be critically outdated, she added.

To establish an updated risk ratio, the study authors scoured national databases to pool stats collected between 2018 and 2021. The databases included the CDC's National Vital Statistics System, which provided the total number of births and pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S., out to a year postpartum. The CDC's Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System documented the number of abortion-related deaths per year, while the total number of abortions per year was obtained from the Guttmacher Institute.

The study authors included both live births and stillbirths in the total number of births, which was not done in the 2012 study. This enabled the researchers to roughly approximate the total number of pregnancies in the U.S., which isn't currently tracked.

While this metric is the next best thing to a count of pregnancies, it still misses some, such as ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, Steenland noted. Since they couldn't confidently count those earlier-stage pregnancies, the researchers also excluded deaths that occurred in those stages from the overall count, she said; they wouldn't have been able to generate an accurate risk ratio with the missing data.

The study found an annual average of 32.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 births in the U.S. between 2018 and 2021. That included at least 3,662 pregnancy-related deaths over the four years, out of about 15 million births. For comparison, that's at least twice the pregnancy-related mortality rate reported in the 2012 study, which ranged from 8.8 to 14.5 per 100,000 live births.

The increased rate may come down to improved tracking of pregnancy-related deaths, the study authors suggested. Notably, a 2003 revision to U.S. death certificates, which was fully implemented in 2018, introduced a "pregnancy" checkbox.

The risk of abortion-related death reported in the new study remained very low, with 17 abortion-related deaths documented between 2018 and 2021 out of more than 3.5 million documented abortions in the U.S. That put the abortion-related mortality rate at about 0.46 deaths per 100,000 abortions, which is marginally lower than the figure of 0.60 per 100,000 abortions reported in the 2012 paper.

A higher death toll linked with pregnancy

Taken together, the 2026 analysis suggests that the risk of death related to pregnancy is at least about 44 times higher than the mortality risk linked to abortion — a figure that towers over the commonly reported statistic suggesting pregnancy is 14 times more likely to result in death than an abortion is.

But, of course, this new figure captures only part of the story, Stephen Burgess, a statistician at the University of Cambridge who was not involved in the study, told Live Science.

The risk of death from pregnancy is known to vary by the age and socioeconomic status of the pregnant person, as well as their access to health care, he noted. Those factors can make a big difference in how well a pregnancy goes and whether it leads to complications that can result in death. The risk ratio itself is also "highly dependent" on the dataset being used to capture abortion rates across the U.S., he noted.

Of note, the Guttmacher Institute did not report the number of abortions in the U.S. in 2021. In the new study, the study authors duplicated the stats from 2020 for the number of abortions in the U.S. in 2021, making the assumption that they were about the same.

Burgess welcomed the new work, saying it provides a more accurate measure of the mortality risk tied to pregnancy, including postpartum care. However, he questioned whether the figure would be "useful in helping either mothers or policymakers to make good decisions."

But for Steenland, the overarching message is clear.

"I think people should know what they're facing, and policymakers should be required to try to make it possible for everyone to access the highest-quality maternity care, to have the best outcomes that they possibly could have," she said.

Maternal care in the U.S. has been on a steady decline in recent decades, with maternal deaths increasing consistently since the 2000s, per a 2024 report from The Commonwealth Fund. Most of these deaths are likely preventable, the report said.

The 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization — which overturned Roe v. Wade — also opened the door for states to ban or heavily restrict abortion. The impacts of that decision are already being felt and are anticipated to prevent improvements in the maternal mortality rate in the near future. This disparity is most keenly felt by certain populations, with Black mothers being 3.3 times more likely to die in states that restrict access to abortion than white mothers in those states.

A recent study also suggests that infant deaths have been on the rise since the abortion bans went into effect.

Steenland noted that going forward, it might be difficult to track pregnancy-related deaths, as "it's very unlikely that CDC will continue to release abortion related mortality statistics," following large cuts to the CDC's Division of Reproductive Health staff in 2025.

"That limitation, along with other reductions and publicly available information that can be used to measure these outcomes," she said, "will limit for sure what we can know about how the ratio has changed or will have changed."

This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.

Human fetal tissue (HFT) research has been indispensable for understanding and combating diseases that affect millions worldwide. Reports that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) may not renew grants supporting this work are deeply troubling, as such action would jeopardize progress against devastating conditions including cancer, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, eye disorders, and neurological and rare diseases.

For decades, HFT has been funded by the U.S. government. It’s had broad bipartisan support under both Republican and Democratic administrations because this research has saved lives. Yet, there are early signs that the Trump administration may ban ethical and well-established uses of fetal tissue in important medical research based on politics rather than science.

During Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Senate confirmation hearings, he committed to prohibiting research with HFT. And earlier this year, in its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, the House Appropriations Labor-Health and Human Services Subcommittee included a policy rider that would restrict research with HFT. If successful, these efforts to ban fetal tissue research will serve only to prolong the suffering of people with terrible diseases.

HFT is irreplaceable. It allows scientists to study how human cells develop so they can recreate those processes using stem cells in the lab. Fetal cells are more resilient than adult cells and can be easier to grow making them essential for research. Most importantly, only human fetal cells accurately reveal how tissues and organs form because animal cells cannot replicate human development. For these reasons, HFT remains the gold standard for understanding human biology and disease.

There's an idea that restricting HFT research would somehow impact the prevalence of abortion in the U.S. — but restrictions on HFT research will not affect anyone’s decision about whether to terminate their pregnancy and will not prevent a single abortion. The research is conducted under strict ethical and scientific oversight. HFT may be obtained only after a woman has independently chosen to terminate a pregnancy, and tissue donation cannot be discussed until that decision is final.

Moreover, no financial incentives are permitted to encourage HFT donation. If not donated, the tissue is otherwise discarded. These restrictions ensure that research does not influence abortion decisions but allows ethically donated tissue to advance life-saving science.

The medical impact of HFT research is profound. In type 1 diabetes, which affects millions and costs $327 billion annually in the U.S., HFT has been crucial for understanding how insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells form and function. These insights have led to stem cell-derived beta cells now in clinical trials. HFT studies have also revealed how these cells respond to glucose (sugar) and why they may fail in people with diabetes — knowledge essential for developing durable therapies.

HFT research has illuminated causes of and contributors to infertility and pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction, and preterm birth — conditions that remain major public health challenges. Scientists have used HFT to develop stem cell-based models of placental development, which are impossible to replicate in animals. These models have revealed mechanisms that control placental formation and maternal-fetal interaction, paving the way for strategies to improve both maternal and child health.

Scientists cannot engineer effective therapies without first knowing how healthy tissues form. Animal models, though valuable, cannot fully mimic human organ development. Fetal tissue provides a window into that process and has enabled the creation of "humanized" models that incorporate authentic human cells to study the immune system, brain, skin and liver. These models, in turn, have advanced research into infectious diseases, cancer and regenerative medicine.

Neurodegenerative disease research has likewise advanced through HFT studies. Work using fetal tissue has identified early abnormalities that appear in fetuses' with Down syndrome and precede Alzheimer’s-like dementia, which routinely occurs in individuals with Down syndrome after age 40. These findings are informing strategies to prevent neurodegeneration before symptoms arise. In short, HFT uniquely bridges developmental and adult disease biology.

Perhaps the most striking examples of HFT’s value come from vaccine development. Nearly every major vaccine has relied at some stage on fetal-tissue-derived cells. Between 1960 and 2015, vaccines for polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (chickenpox), herpes zoster (shingles), adenovirus, rabies, and hepatitis A prevented an estimated 4.5 billion cases of disease and 10.5 million deaths worldwide. The victory over polio — once a terrifying cause of paralysis and death — was possible only after scientists discovered that poliovirus replicated efficiently in fetal-tissue-derived cells. Likewise, the rubella vaccine, which prevents miscarriages and birth defects, was developed using an HFT-derived cell line that continues to ensure vaccine safety today.

HFT research has already saved millions of lives and continues to drive biomedical innovation. Restricting it would not alter abortion rates — it would only force scientists to discard an irreplaceable research resource instead of using it to advance treatments for devastating diseases. Science, not politics, should guide medical progress.

The choice is clear. We must continue to harness ethically donated human tissue to alleviate suffering and ensure that fear and misinformation do not stall life-saving discovery.

U.S. states that recently adopted new abortion bans have had more babies die after the bans took effect, new research suggests.

The new analysis looked at the rate of death among children under age 1 before and after these abortion bans took effect. After the bans kicked in, an estimated 5.6% more infants died than would have done if the bans weren't imposed. That increase amounted to 478 extra deaths, in total.

The analysis included states that either implemented total abortion bans — which cover abortion at any time in the pregnancy — or restricted abortion after six weeks; the bans were passed between September 2021 and August 2022. These states were Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

("Total" abortion bans often include limited exceptions, such as for rape or incest, but in practice, these exceptions are often "unworkable," according to KFF.)

Related: Telehealth abortions are as safe and effective as in-person, large study shows

The data revealed that Black people were disproportionately affected by these abortion bans, with an approximately 11% increase in estimated child deaths, compared with other racial and ethnic groups. This may be because Black people were already more likely to have abortions before the bans were adopted, Alison Gemmill, a perinatal epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, told Live Science.

Gemmill and colleagues described their findings in a paper published Feb. 13 in JAMA.

In addition, the upticks in death rates were higher — also around 11% higher — among children with congenital anomalies, also called birth defects. This is likely because a higher number of women were forced to carry fetuses to term that had no chance of survival, Gemmill said.

"When we're thinking about policies, it's important to think about these negative effects and what happens when we limit reproductive autonomy," Gemmill said. "This makes for a strong case for why abortion should be a decision made between a woman, her physician and, in the case of a congenital anomaly, also a genetic counselor."

The researchers looked at all live births and infant deaths from all 50 US states, as well as Washington D.C., between 2012 and 2023. They then used this data to compare how many children died before and after abortion bans were introduced in 14 states.

Beyond Black children and newborns with congenital anomalies, death rates were also particularly high in children born in Southern states, such as Texas, Kentucky and Alabama. That may partly have to do with geography, Gemmill said. For instance, someone in Missouri, where abortion is banned, may be able to drive across the border to Illinois where it is still currently legal, while someone in Mississippi is surrounded by states that also ban the procedure. Thus, they would have to drive much farther or fly to access abortion care, she suggested.

In a separate paper which also published Feb. 13, the researchers found that these same abortion bans in 14 states were tied to 1 additional birth per 1,000 women of reproductive age in these jurisdictions. Groups that historically face higher barriers to abortion care — such as people from racial minorities and those with lower levels of education — were most impacted, Gemmill said.

The pair of studies "provide compelling evidence of the significant effects state-level abortion restrictions have on birth rates and infant mortality, especially in vulnerable populations," Alyssa Bilinski, an assistant professor of health policy at Brown University who was not involved in the research, wrote in a commentary of the papers.

"Even amidst heated national abortion debates, there remains much room for agreement," Bilinski argues. "Ensuring every child has the opportunity to thrive is a shared objective that transcends partisan lines, and thoughtful, family-oriented policy can both help to address the harms raised in these studies and foster a healthier and more equitable society for all."

A major question that still needs to be addressed is whether this upward trend in infant mortality is temporary or not. Some states are considering implementing stronger abortion restrictions, and there is talk of a potential national abortion ban, so the situation may get worse, Gemmill said.

The current studies didn't look at how many more people are dying in pregnancy or childbirth in states with abortion bans, but previous research has suggested that restricting access to abortion care can increase maternal death rates, along with infant mortality rates.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.

Infant mortality in the U.S. has increased by 7% since the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson U.S. Supreme Court decision overturned the constitutional right to abortion, according to an October 2024 study.

Those findings followed another study that reported a 12.7% rise in infant mortality in Texas after the implementation of Senate Bill 8, which bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Except for medical emergencies, the law effectively makes abortions illegal in the state after about five to six weeks' gestation.

Both studies noted larger increases in deaths among infants born with birth defects. This suggests women are delivering more babies with severe congenital malformations who have no hope of survival beyond a few hours, days or, at most, a few weeks.

But even before this new research substantiated such a link, clinicians who specialize in care for high-risk pregnancies warned about the potential consequences of the new abortion laws.

We are researchers focused on maternal and child health who evaluate the safety of medications during pregnancy. We identify medications that might raise the risk for birth defects or pregnancy loss.

We also evaluate the effectiveness of policies and initiatives aimed at improving pregnancy outcomes, including whether stricter abortion laws could result in more infant deaths.

Related: Mifepristone: What to know about the drug in the Supreme Court's abortion pill case

Birth defects: A leading cause of infant mortality

Birth defects affect 3% of pregnancies in the U.S.

They can be caused by exposures to certain medications, infections, maternal diseases or genetics. For many, causes are unknown.

While birth defects can develop at any time during pregnancy, most occur during the first three months of pregnancy, a critical time for organ development. More than 5% of pregnancies are exposed to about 200 medications with the potential to cause birth defects.

Many birth defects are treatable; orofacial clefts and some heart defects, for example, can be corrected with surgery. Some cause lifelong disability and some are fatal, resulting in babies who are stillborn or die shortly after birth. Birth defects are a leading cause of infant mortality, accounting for about 20% of deaths in the first year of life.

Among anomalies considered lethal, not all result in pregnancy loss or immediate death at delivery. For example, more than half of infants with trisomy 18, a chromosomal abnormality that causes severe heart defects or breathing problems, die within the first week of life. Only 13% survive until their first birthday.

Anencephaly, a birth defect that affects the development of the skull and brain, results in either stillbirth or death within the first weeks of life. But there is one case report of an infant who survived to her second birthday.

More than 80% of women will choose to terminate a pregnancy with anencephaly when detected before 24 weeks' gestation, according to data from before the Dobbs decision. Given the profound effects on parents' lives, this choice is very personal. But in many states, these women may no longer have a choice. Because of abortion laws with limited or no exceptions, women who carry a fetus with a fatal condition have no legal option other than to carry their pregnancy to term.

Legal landscape of abortion laws

As of January 2025, 16 states have total abortion bans in effect or restrictions that do not permit abortions after six weeks. In nine of these states, lethal birth defects are not considered an exception.

But even in states with those exceptions, the legal wording used to craft the legislation is often confusing to health care providers. Statutory language does not always use medical terms and may assume a certainty about pregnancy outcomes that does not exist. For example, even anencephaly does not meet the commonly used statutory definition of "no viability outside the uterus."

Such uncertainty adds to hesitation — and fear — on the part of doctors and nurses who may face steep penalties, including criminal charges and prison time, should they provide an abortion that is later deemed illegal in a court of law.

Prenatal care too late

In 2023, prenatal care began after the first trimester for about 24% of pregnancies in the U.S.

In our February 2024 study of a national sample of nearly 640,000 privately insured pregnant women, the median time to prenatal care was eight weeks. In other words, for more than half of women living in a state with a six-week abortion ban, obstetric assessments would likely commence too late to consider an abortion if a birth defect were detected.

More than 6,000 women in our study were exposed to medications that can cause birth defects within the first six weeks of pregnancy. These include medications used to treat common yeast or urinary tract infections, drugs used for migraine or weight loss, and blood pressure medications, to name a few. Nearly all of those women — 96% — had no prenatal care prior to taking the medication, and many may not have been aware they were pregnant. For more than 80% of these pregnancies, prenatal care started after six weeks, too late to prevent exposure to unsafe medications or to screen for potential birth defects and to consider pregnancy termination in states with stricter abortion bans.

Importantly, prenatal identification methods of birth defects range from screening maternal blood for chromosome abnormalities, which is done at 10 weeks' gestation, to a second-trimester ultrasound to look for fetal structural defects, to procedures such as chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis to evaluate for genetic conditions. These are all performed after six weeks of pregnancy.

Even if screening might still fall within abortion cutoffs, the probability to detect adverse outcomes in utero varies substantially.

For example, valproic acid is a medication that treats epilepsy, migraine and some mental health disorders. About 1% to 2% of women taking valproic acid become pregnant each year. Valproic acid causes birth defects that can be detected in utero such as oral clefts or spina bifida. But it also increases the risk for autism and adverse cognitive defects, which may be diagnosed years after delivery.

Currently, there is no law addressing instances when an adverse outcome is probable but cannot be confirmed before delivery. Hence, stricter abortion laws are expected to not only increase inevitable infant deaths but also births of infants with severe disability.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has rejected a bid to restrict people's access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone. The drug is one half of a two-pill regimen prescribed for medication abortions, which made up more than 60% of all abortions in the U.S. last year.

The plaintiffs in the case were members of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM), a collective of anti-abortion groups that includes doctors. The defendant was the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

The plaintiffs argued that AHM has the right to sue the FDA over how it regulates mifepristone because the collective's members may end up treating patients who experience side effects of the drug. In recent years, the FDA has made it easier for patients to access the pill — for instance, people can now be prescribed mifepristone after a telehealth appointment, rather than an in-person doctor's visit, and they can then receive it in person from a pharmacy or by mail.  

Telehealth abortions are as safe and effective as those prescribed in person, but in a small percentage of cases, people may experience serious side effects or require additional treatment to end their pregnancy. The plaintiffs argued that, if tasked with treating such patients, AHM members would have to divert resources from other patients, and in addition, treating patients with these side effects would violate the doctors' moral stances around abortion.

Related: Roe v. Wade: Facts about the landmark case

The Supreme Court had to address whether AHM had the legal standing to sue the FDA on these grounds. On Thursday (June 13), the court unanimously agreed that the plaintiff did not have legal standing.

In a 9-0 opinion delivered by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court declared that "the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that FDA's relaxed regulatory requirements likely would cause them to suffer an injury in fact. For that reason, the federal courts are the wrong forum for addressing the plaintiffs' concerns about FDA's actions." 

The full text of the ruling can be read online. 

The regimen involving mifepristone and a second pill, misoprostol, is the most commonly prescribed regimen for medication abortions in the United States. Mifepristone ended up in the Supreme Court after its approval and regulation was challenged in lower courts. 

Initially, a Texas judge ruled that the FDA's original approval of the pill in 2000 should be overturned. That ruling was appealed, and an appellate court said that the drug's approval should stand unchallenged. 

However, the appellate court wanted to roll back regulatory changes that the FDA made in 2016 and 2021, on the grounds that the FDA didn't adequately follow procedure or explain its reasoning when it made these changes. This rollback would have reinstated the requirement for patients to get the pill in person from a certified doctor, along with other restrictions. 

The appellate court's decision was then appealed by both the AHM and FDA, and the case moved up to SCOTUS.

Had SCOTUS decided that the AHM had legal standing, it could have impacted the FDA's authority over all drugs — not only abortion pills. Stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry and medical ethics experts expressed concerns that setting such a precedent could have opened the door for doctors to sue over any drug approval or regulation they disagree with, regardless of that medicine's safety or effectiveness.

Ever wonder why some people build muscle more easily than others or why freckles come out in the sun? Send us your questions about how the human body works to community@livescience.com with the subject line "Health Desk Q," and you may see your question answered on the website!

People's races have profound impacts on their health, but that's not because people of different backgrounds have fundamentally different biology. Rather, these social categories influence people's chances of being exposed to environmental stressors and pollution, of having limited access to health care, and of not being taken seriously in a doctor's office — including that of an obstetrician.   

In this excerpt from "Systemic: How Racism is Making Us Ill" (Bloomsbury Circus, 2024), science journalist Layal Liverpool interrogates the anxieties that bubble up for her as she considers pregnancy. As a Black woman, trained biomedical scientist and journalist who covers the impacts of racism on medical care, she is well aware of how racism impacts people's experiences of pregnancy at every step of the journey. Her new book explores these widespread racial inequities in reproductive care, as well as those that exist in other aspects of health care, in medical education and in research. The text also profiles people working to close these gaps, and making great strides in doing so. 

Related: 'Racism is a global public health crisis': Author Layal Liverpool says racist ideas still pervade medicine, and that hurts all of us   

When I spoke with J'Mag Karbeah, the health services researcher at the University of Minnesota, she described the process of pregnancy and giving birth as "one of the most fantastic things the human body can do." As beautiful as that sounds, it also scares me: I am at a point in my life where pregnancy is shifting from something I have spent years actively trying to prevent, to something my partner and I think we might want. Both notions — not wanting to become pregnant and trying to become pregnant — carry several anxieties in my mind.

For as long as I can remember, I have had access to contraception and known that having an abortion would be an option available to me in case of an unwanted pregnancy or one that posed a danger to my health. I recognise that this is a privileged position to be in and it isn't one I take for granted. The WHO describes abortion as an "essential health care service" and yet, in June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — the landmark 1973 ruling which had provided a constitutional right to abortion. Since the court's decision, millions in the U.S. have lost access to safe abortions in their states and, as ever, Black people and other people belonging to marginalised groups have been disproportionately affected.

According to 2019 data from the CDC, Black and Latina women are respectively four and two times more likely to have abortions than White women. In July 2022, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that more than four in 10 women aged 18 to 49 living in states where abortion had already become or was likely to become illegal were women of colour, including almost half of American Indian or Alaska Native women in that age range. It seems particularly cruel to me that people belonging to marginalised groups who are already disproportionately at risk of dying during pregnancy and childbirth are also often deprived of reproductive choice and access to this vital form of healthcare. And it isn't only the U.S. where abortion access is being curtailed. Many anti-abortion organisations founded in the U.S. now have branches abroad, including in Europe where I am based, and countries including El Salvador, Nicaragua and Poland — where my partner is from — have also rolled back abortion access in the last few decades.

When it comes to trying to become pregnant, I also have some concerns. Racial and ethnic inequalities are present at every stage of pregnancy, even before pregnancy begins. Statistics on miscarriage are sparse, but a 2021 study which analysed data from seven countries in North America and Europe suggests that the risk is higher for Black women compared with White women. The analysis of data from 4.6 million pregnancies in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway, indicated that the risk of early pregnancy loss was 43% higher for Black women compared with White women. In the U.S. and U.K., research suggests Black women also face more barriers in accessing fertility treatment. Black women in the U.S. undergo fewer in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) cycles and have lower IVF birth rates compared with White women on average, despite being about twice as likely to experience infertility.

In the U.K., meanwhile, Black patients receiving IVF tend to be older than average on presentation and both Black and Asian patients tend to have lower IVF birth rates compared with White patients. In addition to inequalities in access to fertility treatment, other factors such as a lack of trust in healthcare services due to experiences of racism, and racist stereotypes about Black hyper-fertility, may also contribute to these disparities. "Such factors are largely unexplored within the fertility discourse, which has overwhelmingly focused on the experiences of White women," wrote Christine Ekechi, co-chair of the Race Equality Taskforce at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, in a 2021 op-ed in the medical journal The Lancet. "Understanding how belief systems, fertility knowledge, and cultural and religious influences intersect with racism, access, and individual health factors is the only way to meaningfully bridge the gap in fertility outcomes," she said.

Excerpted from the book "Systemic: How Racism is Making Us Ill" by Layal Liverpool. Published by Bloomsbury Circus on June 6, 2024. Reprinted by permission. 

The number of young people undergoing sterilization procedures has "abruptly increased" following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June 2022, a new study shows.

The research, published Friday (April 12) in the journal JAMA Health Forum, assessed the impact of the ruling on the reproductive choices of young Americans, between ages 18 and 30. The 2022 court case, known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, instead allowing states to regulate the medical procedure. As of early April 2024, abortion has been banned in 14 states, with a further 11 implementing gestational limits on the procedure, according to KFF. 

In the new study, scientists analyzed data from medical records to look for changes in the rate of tubal ligations — so-called tube-tying procedures — and vasectomies performed before and after Dobbs. They compared the time window of January 2019 to May 2022 with the months immediately following Dobbs, from June 2022 to September 2023. 

Tubal ligations and vasectomies are surgical procedures intended to permanently prevent pregnancy. Tubal ligation involves blocking or cutting the fallopian tubes — the passageways along which eggs are released from the ovaries into the uterus during the menstrual cycle. A vasectomy, meanwhile, involves surgeons cutting and sealing the tubes that supply semen with sperm from the testicles. 

Related: Telehealth abortions are as safe and effective as in-person, large study shows

Both procedures can theoretically be reversed, but this is not always possible, so doctors advise patients to think of the surgeries as permanent contraception.

In the wake of Dobbs, the researchers found that an extra 58 women got tubal ligations in the U.S. per 100,000 outpatient visits. That's about an additional five procedures a month. Around 27 more men had a vasectomy per 100,000 outpatient visits during this time period; however, month to month, this didn't amount to a statistically signicant increase. 

The findings show that many more young people are seeking permanent contraception as a result of Dobbs, likely because the ruling created a "sense of urgency" in this demographic.  

"If young people feel pressured to use permanent contraception out of fear or anxiety about abortion bans, this is an issue of reproductive autonomy," Jacqueline Ellison, lead study author and an assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Pittsburgh, told Live Science in an email. 

"Our study also illustrates the disproportionate effect of abortion restrictions on women and people who can get pregnant," Ellison said. "Because cisgender men are less likely to bear the health, social, and economic consequences of compulsory pregnancy, they may not feel the same sense of urgency to undergo permanent contraception."

While many people are satisfied with their decision to get their tubes tied, research has also shown that women under 30 are twice as likely to regret sterilization as older individuals. This age group is also around eight times more likely to undergo a reversal or an evaluation for fertility treatment after the procedures.

"The saddest thing is the number of U.S. women who regret having had their tubes tied, some because they falsely believed that it was easy to 'untie' their tubes," said Dr. Eleanor Schwarz, a general internist and health services researcher at the University of California, San Francisco who was not involved in the research.

It is important that people are aware of other safe and effective birth control options, such as intrauterine devices (IUDs), which are inserted into the uterus, and arm contraceptive implants, she said. These are both forms of long-term contraception that can be removed, if desired. These devices effectively prevent pregnancy for up to five or 12 years, respectively. 

"U.S. women really need easier access to IUDs and implants especially in states that are limiting access to abortion," Schwarz said. 

Following Dobbs, though, experts have expressed concern that people's legal right to contraception could also soon be challenged, KFF reported. Some abortion bans could be used to restrict contraception, due to a false understanding that these drugs and devices count as "abortifacients." And in the future, a Supreme Court ruling called Griswold v. Connecticut, which cemented married people's right to contraception, could also come under fire.

Ever wonder why some people build muscle more easily than others or why freckles come out in the sun? Send us your questions about how the human body works to community@livescience.com with the subject line "Health Desk Q," and you may see your question answered on the website!

The nation's largest pharmacy chains, CVS and Walgreens, will begin dispensing the abortion pill mifepristone in select stores within weeks, according to news reports.

Historically, patients had to get mifepristone in person from a certified doctor in a clinic, medical office or hospital. But in recent years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has adjusted its regulations to ease people's access to the drug, which is part of a two-pill regimen used to induce an abortion. For example, the FDA has recently allowed certified pharmacies to dispense the pill.

Both CVS and Walgreens say they've now been certified to sell mifepristone, as required by the FDA, The New York Times reported. This certification process requires a pharmacy to file a form with the drug's manufacturer stating that they agree to follow certain rules. For example, pharmacies must ensure the doctor prescribing the pill is certified through the FDA's Mifepristone Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy Program.

Related: Are 'home remedies' for abortion safe? (Experts say no.)

Walgreens announced that it will start selling mifepristone "within the week" at select locations in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California and Illinois. CVS, meanwhile, will start dispensing the pill in Massachusetts and Rhode Island "in the weeks ahead," a company spokesperson told the Times. Neither pharmacy will mail the drug to patients, they've said, although the FDA does allow the pill to be distributed in that way.

The FDA changed its rules around mifepristone dispensing in January 2023, clearing the way for certified pharmacies to distribute the drug. In fact, some small, independent pharmacies actually began doing so last year.

In 2021, the FDA did away with the requirement that mifepristone could only be dispensed in person by a certified doctor in a health care setting. This pandemic-prompted change opened the door for the pill to be prescribed through telemedicine and delivered via mail, which data suggest is as safe and effective as getting abortion pills in person.

Mifepristone is part of a two-pill treatment to trigger a "medication abortion," or an abortion brought about by drugs rather than through a physical procedure. The second drug in the regimen, misoprostol, is also used to treat other, non-pregnancy-related conditions and is not as tightly regulated as mifepristone; it's already available at pharmacies with a prescription.

To induce an abortion, mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, which the body needs to maintain a pregnancy, and misoprostol then triggers contractions that empty the uterus. This regimen is approved to end a pregnancy up to 70 days from the start of the person's last menstrual period.   

Medication abortions are now very common, with data suggesting they accounted for more than 50% of abortions in the U.S. in 2020. The same pills are also used to manage miscarriages. 

Medication abortion has very low complication rates. A review of data from more than 45,500 women who underwent medication abortions showed that the drugs failed to terminate the pregnancy in around 1 in 100 cases. Among these patients, fewer than 1 in 300 people required hospitalization, and around 1 in 1,000 needed blood transfusions due to heavy bleeding. 

Despite these results and others that support the drug's safety and effectiveness, the approval of mifepristone has recently been challenged in court. It will soon be discussed by the U.S. Supreme Court, whose ruling could affect whether the pill will continue to be available through the mail in states where the practice isn't already restricted or banned.

That said, overall, data suggest that the rate of complications for medication abortions is slightly higher than that for procedural abortions — about 2% for medication abortion, compared with 1.3% for first-trimester aspiration abortions, for example, which use a small vacuum to clear out the womb. 

That's likely partly because, compared with medication, aspiration abortions have a slightly lower risk of being "incomplete," meaning the pregnancy has ended but not all the tissues built up during pregnancy have been expelled from the uterus, according to the University of California, San Francisco. Incomplete abortions require medical attention because they pose a risk of infection and heavy bleeding.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.

Using abortion pills that are prescribed via telehealth is just as safe and effective as having the medication prescribed in person, the largest study of its kind suggests. 

The scientists behind the study say the finding could reassure patients who are skeptical about the safety and legitimacy of telehealth abortions and help meet the growing demand for accessible abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Since that 2022 ruling, the safety of pills used in medication abortion — specifically, the drug mifepristone — has also been debated in state and federal appeals courts and will soon be addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The new study underscores this drug's already-proven safety record.

Medication abortions typically involve taking mifepristone and a second drug called misoprostol; this method can be used up to 10 weeks gestation, or 70 days from the start of a person's last menstrual period. The new analysis included more than 6,000 pregnant people who underwent telehealth abortions, 97.7% of whom successfully terminated their pregnancies without requiring any further treatment. 

This rate is comparable to the 97.4% success rate described in Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drug label for mifepristone, as well as rates described in previous studies of medication abortion prescribed in person and then used either at home or in a hospital. 

Related: Chemicals in plastics and cosmetics tied to preterm birth risk

Only 0.25% of the patients in the study experienced serious side effects related to their abortions, some of which required blood transfusions, for instance. Just 0.16% had an ectopic pregnancy, which is when the fertilized egg implants in tissue somewhere other than the uterus. This is a concern because, during a medication abortion at home, this rare complication might not be recognized as it could be in a clinic and could then rupture, requiring immediate treatment. 

These figures are comparable to published data on medication abortions conducted after an in-person assessment: The rate of serious side effects ranges between 0.2% and 0.5%, and ectopic pregnancy rates are about 0.2%, the authors wrote in the new study, published Thursday (Feb. 15) in the journal Nature Medicine. 

"This is the largest study on telehealth abortion in the U.S. and significantly adds to the body of evidence showing its safety and effectiveness," Ushma Upadhyay, lead study author and a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, told Live Science in an email.

The findings have "huge" policy implications, Upadhyay said. In 2021, the FDA ruled that mifepristone could be prescribed via remote consultations based on a patient's self-reported medical history rather than on in-person assessments involving an ultrasound, for instance. However, the Supreme Court is soon expected to determine whether this regulatory change should stay, after a federal appeals court ruled against it in 2023. The appeals court also argued that the drugs should be used only up to seven weeks of gestation and only in the presence of a physician. 

"This research shows that the FDA followed science when it expanded how this medication could be dispensed," Upadhyay said. "The Supreme Court should follow suit and allow the FDA regulatory changes to stand," she said. There are some states that already ban telehealth abortions, but the Supreme Court's ruling would open the door for a nationwide ban.

In their analysis, Upadhyay and colleagues used data on 6,034 pregnant people in the California Home Abortion by Telehealth study. The patients received medication from three virtual clinics operating in 20 states and Washington, D.C., between April 2021 and January 2022.

Each patient received 200 milligrams of mifepristone followed by 1,600 or 800 micrograms of misoprostol, depending on whether they were more or less than 63 days pregnant. These drugs were prescribed after either a videoconference or secure text-message exchanges with a doctor and then delivered by mail. 

Anyone suspected of being more than 70 days pregnant or at risk of ectopic pregnancy were excluded and asked to go to a clinic for a pre-abortion ultrasound. The team followed up with each patient remotely three to seven days after their abortion and also about one to three weeks after that.

There was no difference in the effectiveness or safety of telehealth abortions between the patients who received care via video or text messages. The latter approach could make medication abortion more accessible to people without strong internet connections, the team wrote in the paper. Of course, that still leaves telehealth abortions inaccessible to those who don't own electronic devices or who are beyond the first trimester of pregnancy, the authors acknowledged.

The study didn't directly compare telehealth medication abortions to in-person abortions but rather looked at data available in published studies for the latter procedures. This could somewhat limit the generalizability of the findings.

Nevertheless, the study could help raise awareness of this increasingly common abortion method. 

"I think there is more work to be done in making it more commonly known that an abortion can occur with medications and that a telehealth abortion is possible," Upadhyay said.  

This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.

On March 26, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) began hearing arguments in a case that could have potentially limited access to abortion pills throughout the country.  On June 13, the court unanimously ruled that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing, and so the trial concluded and no added restrictions were placed on the pill. 

The pill discussed in the case, called mifepristone, is one drug in a two-pill regimen commonly prescribed for medication abortions. The Supreme Court did not agree to discuss the drug's approval that has stood for more than 20 years. Rather, the court could have rolled back regulatory changes made by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make it easier to access mifepristone. These changes include the ability to get the pill by mail without an in-person doctor's visit, for example.

Here's what you need to know about mifepristone and the now-concluded Supreme Court case.

The FDA notes on the label for mifepristone that the regimen has a 97.4% success rate, based on U.S.-based clinical trials. (The exact numbers vary slightly between different studies and the groups of people included.)

A 2024 study also found that receiving mifepristone via telehealth is as safe and effective as having it prescribed in person. The study followed 6,000 people who had telehealth abortions, 97.7% of whom successfully terminated their pregnancies without additional treatment. About 0.25% experienced serious side effects, some of which required blood transfusions.

Related: 8 Supreme Court decisions that changed US families 

Stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry and medical ethics experts had worried that, if the court were to rule that AHM had standing, it could have opened the door for doctors to sue over any drug approval they disagree with, regardless of that drug's safety or effectiveness. Future challenges could be leveraged at the HIV-prevention drug PrEP or against medications used in gender-affirming care, for instance, according to KFF. 

It could have also opened the door for drug companies to sue the FDA when the agency denies one of their products an approval, or for patients who experience side effects from a drug to sue in order to bar other patients from accessing the medicine, The Washington Post reported.

Had SCOTUS decided the plaintiffs had standing, the court would have also discussed whether the FDA's 2016 and 2021 regulatory changes around mifepristone were "arbitrary and capricious." In brief, AFM claimed that the FDA did not conduct adequate research to evaluate all of the possible effects that could come from expanding access to the pill in various ways, and the 5th Circuit Court agreed with that stance. 

Had SCOTUS ruled similarly, the court's decision could have rolled back the rules around mifepristone to how they were back in 2011. 

In addition, many argued that the move would have brought the FDA's authority to regulate drugs into question, with far-reaching implications beyond the realm of reproductive health.

Editor's note: This story was last updated on June 13, 2024, with information about how the case was resolved. The article was first published on April 10, 2023. 

This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.

Ever wonder why some people build muscle more easily than others or why freckles come out in the sun? Send us your questions about how the human body works to community@livescience.com with the subject line "Health Desk Q," and you may see your question answered on the website! 

Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate the constitutional right to abortion, news outlets reported the story of a pregnant 10-year-old girl who had to travel from Ohio to Indiana to access abortion care. The story highlighted how young victims of rape will be affected by the court's ruling and jumpstarted a discussion about the risks that pregnancy and childbirth pose to young children. 

A pregnant 10-year-old would face significant and potentially life-threatening medical risks in carrying a pregnancy to term — and harrowingly, children even younger than age 10 can become pregnant.  

Simply put, pregnancy is possible from the start of ovulation, meaning the point at which the ovaries begin releasing mature eggs, called ova, Dr. Melissa Simon, a professor and obstetrician-gynecologist at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, told Live Science. It's important to note that "you can start ovulating before you start having your first period," and the release of an egg isn't necessarily accompanied by any obvious physical symptoms, Simon added. 

More commonly, ovulation begins after menarche, or a person's first period, according to the medical database StatPearls. According to the latest available data, collected in 2017, menarche typically occurs between age 10 and 16. However, research hints that the age of menarche is trending downward, meaning the number of children who have their first period before age 10 is likely increasing, Simon said. 

Related: Why are pregnant women told to sleep on their left side? 

"There's a lot of potential dangers of carrying a pregnancy when you're age 9 or 10," Simon said. For example, during pregnancy, the volume of blood in a person's body increases by about 50%, and all that extra fluid can put tremendous strain on a child's heart, Simon said. The child's growing body may also be deprived of critical nutrients, like calcium, as those nutrients get diverted to the developing fetus. 

Compared with mothers in their early 20s, mothers aged 10 to 19 face a higher risk of developing dangerously high blood pressure in pregnancy (preeclampsia) that can lead to complications like seizures and coma (eclampsia), according to the World Health Organization (WHO). They also face a heightened risk of systemic infections and infections of the uterine lining (puerperal endometritis), according to the WHO, as well as maternal anemia, where the number of healthy, oxygen-carrying red blood cells in the body significantly declines, according to The New York Times.

"The complications, the morbidity and the mortality are much higher in girls under 15 than girls 16 to 19, although 16 to 19 has a mortality twice as high as women 20 and above," Dr. Ashok Dyalchand, head of the Institute of Health Management Pachod, a public health organization serving marginalized communities in central India, told The New York Times.

Due to their narrow pelvises, children also face a high risk of obstructed labor, a dangerous complication in which the baby gets stuck in the birth canal during delivery, Simon said. Obstructed labor places pressure on the bladder and urethra and raises the risk of pelvic inflammatory disease, an infection of the reproductive organs, according to The New York Times. In addition, obstructed labor can cause the birth canal to rupture, causing holes to appear between the vagina and bladder or rectum through which urine and feces can leak. These holes, or fistulas, require intensive surgeries to repair, Simon said. 

Due to such risks, pregnant children would typically be recommended to undergo Cesarean sections (C-sections), rather than vaginal deliveries, Simon said. The major surgery comes with its own risks, such as heavy bleeding, infection and bladder and bowel injuries, and depending on the type of incision made, the procedure can increase the likelihood of requiring a C-section in future pregnancies, according to University of Utah Health. Having multiple C-sections raises the risk of "placenta accreta," a life-threatening condition where the placenta implants near the C-section scar.

On top of these medical risks, children who become pregnant also endure significant mental trauma, Simon said. "The mental toll of carrying a baby — I can't even fathom what kind of mental toll that would have on a child," she said. 

Related: Why can't babies drink cow's milk? 

Who is the youngest known person to give birth? 

Lina Medina became the youngest person to give birth in recorded history when she underwent a Cesarean section at the age of 5 years, 7 months and 21 days old, according to the fact-checking website Snopes, which confirmed the validity of this widely cited case in 2004.

Medina lived in Ticrapo, Peru, and in April 1939, her parents brought her to the Hospital of Pisco and expressed concerns that a large tumor was growing in her abdomen. After evaluating Medina, doctors determined that the child was actually about seven months pregnant. The identity of the child's rapist couldn't be confirmed, in part, because the 5-year-old "couldn't give precise responses" to questions about the event, physician-researcher Edmundo Escomel wrote in the May 1939 issue of the French journal La Presse Médicale. 

Medina delivered a six-pound (2.7 kilogram) baby boy on May 14, 1939 at a hospital in Lima, the report states. The baby could only be delivered via C-section due to the small size of Medina's pelvis.

During the procedure, doctors biopsied a tissue sample from one of Medina's ovaries and found that the tissues resembled those of an adult woman. The child was originally reported to have started menstruating at age 3, but later reports stated that she'd had her first period at 8 months old. In a report published in December 1939 in La Presse Medicale, Escomel theorized that the child started puberty extraordinary early due to some disorder of the pituitary gland — a bean-shaped gland at the base of the brain that directs the body's production of sex hormones. 

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article was published in 2011. This new article was published on August 2, 2022 by Live Science staff writer Nicoletta Lanese following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Originally published on Live Science. 

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's June 24, 2022, decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, people promptly turned to the internet to search for and share "home remedies" for abortion. While some of the trending remedies are relatively harmless, albeit ineffective, others can be extremely dangerous and even life-threatening, experts told Live Science.  

Home remedies for abortion are "really never safe," whether they involve herbs, supplements, douching, self-injury or drugs intended for other purposes, Dr. Melissa Simon, a professor and obstetrician-gynecologist at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, told Live Science. "They're not safe, and we as physicians and clinicians do not recommend any of them."

Dr. Ryan Marino, an assistant professor and medical toxicologist at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, agreed. "There is no 'natural abortifacient' that is safe and effective," he said. The most dangerous of these purported abortion remedies can cause liver and kidney damage, organ failure, seizures, and severe bleeding, scarring or life-threatening infection. 

Live Science spoke with Simon and Marino about some of the most commonly shared home remedies for abortion and the potential risks they pose. In addition, we discussed the safest and most rigorously tested option for self-managed abortion: medication abortion, meaning pills designed to induce an abortion early in pregnancy.  

Related: Roe v. Wade FAQ: What if abortion rights law gets overturned? 

Risk of incomplete abortion

One reason so-called abortion remedies can be dangerous is that they might trigger an incomplete abortion, Simon said. An incomplete abortion is defined as the "partial loss of products of conception within the first 20 weeks of pregnancy," according to the medical database StatPearls; that means that some, but not all, of the tissues that develop after implanation have been expelled from the body. (Note that an incomplete miscarriage is also referred to as an incomplete abortion.) 

This condition can cause abdominal and pelvic pain, contractions and moderate to severe bleeding. Potential complications include uterine rupture; severe blood loss leading to hemorrhagic shock; and severe infection leading to sepsis, a life-threatening, whole-body immune reaction. Infection of the uterus, vagina and cervix can also cause permanent scarring and infertility, Simon said.

"It is important to diagnose [incomplete abortion] early to make sure the patient expels all products of conception," according to StatPearls. Some patients don't require any treatment for incomplete abortion, but others require IV hydration, blood transfusions and/or "surgical evacuation" to clear the products of conception.

Dangers of douching

Douching involves using a mixture of fluids to flush out the vagina, and even outside the context of abortion remedies, douching can cause serious health problems. "Douching we never recommend, even for normal vaginal care," Simon said. 

Douching can disrupt the bacteria that naturally grow in the vagina and help maintain the acidic environment of the vaginal canal, which helps guard against infection, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Women's Health. Douching can raise the risk of vaginal infections, as well as infections of the uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries. It can also raise the risk of a serious infection known as pelvic inflammatory disease, as well as increase the risk of preterm birth and ectopic pregnancy, where a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus. (Ectopic pregnancies are not viable and are life-threatening for the pregnant person, and their only treatment is termination.)

Douching solutions sold in stores often contain water and either vinegar, baking soda or iodine, all of which can irritate and scar the vagina, thus raising the risk of infection, Simon said, adding that she's seen online "recipes" for douching solutions that call for particularly bizarre or dangerous ingredients, such as flavored sodas or bleach.

Uncertainties of "dietary supplements"

Besides the risk of triggering an incomplete abortion, herbs and supplements purported to induce abortion carry another risk: Consumers can't be 100% sure of the ingredients contained in a given product.

That's because, unlike drugs, "dietary supplements" sold in the U.S. don't have to be proven safe and effective before being put on the market, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); dietary supplements include vitamins, minerals, herbs and other botanicals, among other products.  Supplement manufacturers must comply with certain safety standards and labeling requirements, but the FDA mostly upholds these rules through "postmarket enforcement" — after the products have reached consumers — rather than vetting products in advance.

"The problem is, you don't know what you're getting; there's no regulations in place," Marino said. A given product could contain a highly concentrated amount of active ingredient or none at all, he said. 

Not only can consumers not be sure of what's in a supplement, but it's also difficult to know whether a new product will agree with other drugs or supplements they're already consuming, Simon said. "There could be a very dangerous interaction" that the consumer might not anticipate if they don't consult a physician first, she said.

Potential risks of common herbal remedies

Pennyroyal

Of all the purported home remedies for abortion, "pennyroyal is probably the worst one that I'm aware of," Marino said. The herb is purported to induce abortion by irritating the uterus, "but lethal doses are necessary for this to occur, and the effect is inconsistent," according to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC).

Pennyroyal refers to two plants in the mint family (Lamiaceae): Mentha pulegium and Hedeoma pulegioides, according to LiverTox, a clinical resource maintained by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Essential oils derived from pennyroyal plants mostly contain pulegone, a compound that metabolizes inside the body into several potent toxins. 

Even small doses of pennyroyal oil can cause fainting, seizures, coma, blood clotting throughout the body, liver and kidney injury, multiorgan failure and death. Other symptoms of pennyroyal poisoning include stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, fever, confusion, vision and hearing problems, high blood pressure and lung failure, according to the National Library of Medicine's MedlinePlus. 

In addition to being unsafe to ingest, pennyroyal oil may be dangerous when applied to the skin, according to MedlinePlus. It's unknown if teas made from pennyroyal plants are safe to ingest, but according to MSKCC, there are case reports of multiorgan failure in infants who were given such teas, and liver failure in a woman who likely experienced a dangerous drug interaction after drinking the tea.

Black cohosh

Black cohosh (Actaea racemosa or Cimicifuga racemosa) was historically used as a labor-inducing aid in late pregnancy, according to a 2006 report in the The Canadian Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. However, research on the use of black cohosh in pregnancy is severely limited, and it's unclear how the herb induces contractions — if indeed it does. 

Regardless, black cohosh has not been shown to induce abortion, Simon said. Even if it helps induce labor in the third trimester, the uterine environment is very different in the first and second trimesters and the herb would likely have different effects at that stage, she added.

Common side effects of taking black cohosh include mild gastrointestinal upset and rashes, according to the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. Other side effects can include cramping, headache, and vaginal spotting or bleeding, according to WebMD. About 80 case reports have linked the herb to liver damage, including liver inflammation (hepatitis) and liver failure, but it's unclear whether these effects were caused by the herb itself or impurities and adulterants present in products labeled as black cohosh, the NIH notes. 

(A 2006 study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that, out of 11 products advertised as black cohosh, three contained no trace of the herb, and one contained a mix of black cohosh and another plant. Among the products that contained only black cohosh, the ratio of active ingredients varied widely, likely due to the manufacturers' use of different extraction techniques.) 

Blue cohosh

Blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) is not related to black cohosh, but the herb has been similarly used to induce labor in late pregnancy. It may cause heart problems and other serious medical conditions in newborns, according to the NCBI Drugs and Lactation Database. 

Blue cohosh contains a compound called N-methylcytosine, which has similar effects to nicotine and may cause similar symptoms to nicotine poisoning, if taken in excess. One case report, published in 2002 in the journal Veterinary and Human Toxicology, described a young woman who, after using blue cohosh, developed a rapid heartbeat, excessive sweating, abdominal pain, vomiting, muscle weakness and twitching — symptoms that are consistent with nicotine poisoning. In extreme cases, nicotine poisoning can cause coma, paralysis and respiratory failure, according to the Cleveland Clinic. 

Blue cohosh consumption can also cause diarrhea, chest pain and increased blood pressure, and it may decrease oxygen flow to the heart, according to WebMD. 

Wormwood

Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), perhaps best known as an ingredient in the liquor absinthe, gets its name from its historical use as a treatment for intestinal worms, although the herb has also been purported to treat other digestive conditions and to stimulate menstruation, according to Drugs.com. That said, wormwood contains a chemical called thujone that can trigger "difficult-to-treat seizures" when taken in great enough quantities, Marino said. "It can definitely be very dangerous," he said. 

Wormwood consumption has also been linked to kidney failure, vomiting and allergic reactions involving skin irritation and nasal congestion, according to WebMD. 

Mugwort

Similar to wormwood, mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) also contains thujone, a neurotoxin that can cause hard-to-treat seizures if consumed in high quantities, according to Medical News Today. And like wormwood, the herb has been historically used to treat various gastrointestinal ailments and to stimulate menstruation, although there's little clinical research to back these uses. 

Tansy

Like wormwood and mugwort, tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) — otherwise known as the common tansy or garden tansy — also contains the neurotoxin thujone, which can cause hard-to-treat seizures if consumed in high quantities, according to North Carolina State University. Tansy can also cause vomiting, severe diarrhea, stomach pain, dizziness, tremors, kidney or liver damage, and bleeding, according to WebMD. 

Rue

Like other herbs in the list above, rue (Ruta graveolens) has been purported to stimulate menstruation and induce abortion, but it carries a risk of serious side effects, according to Drugs.com. 

Consuming high doses of rue can cause kidney damage, liver inflammation, severe gastric pain, vomiting, breathing problems and death, according to Drugs.com and WebMD. In addition, skin contact with rue can cause photodermatitis, an allergic reaction in which the skin breaks out in itchy bumps and blisters upon exposure to ultraviolet light. 

Other herbs, foods and supplements

While some abortion remedies are toxic to users, others are relatively benign. For example, some people claim that taking large doses of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) can induce abortion, but this claim is based on weak research published in 1966; modern studies of vitamin C use in pregnancy show that the vitamin does not increase the chance of miscarriage or affect the pregnancy in any way, according to Healthline. 

That said, if consumed in high enough doses, vitamin C can cause diarrhea, nausea, abdominal cramps and other gastrointestinal disturbances, according to the NIH. Excessive vitamin C intake may also raise the risk of developing kidney stones, although the vitamin's exact role in kidney stone formation remains unclear. "Vitamin C is very hard to have toxicity from, but you definitely can," Marino told Live Science. 

A quick scroll through TikTok and other social media platforms will turn up other seemingly benign abortion remedies, including cinnamon, papaya, parsley, ginger and figs, none of which have been shown to induce abortion. These spices and foods are safe to consume in moderation, but if attempting to induce an abortion, people might eat these products in excessive quanities, or else try to insert or inject substances into their bodies, which could be dangerous, Marino said. 

Eating too much cinnamon, for instance, can cause liver damage, according to Healthine, and apiol, an essential oil in parsley, can cause liver and kidney damage when taken in high doses, according to the National Library of Medicine. 

The safest option: Medication abortion

The safest and most rigorously tested method for self-managed abortion — meaning an abortion induced outside a medical setting — is known as medication abortion, Simon said.

Medication abortion involves taking abortion pills called mifepristone and misoprostol; either these drugs are taken in combination, or misoprostol is taken by itself, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). (Note that Plan B and similar forms of emergency contraception are not abortion pills.)

The combination regimen involves taking mifepristone orally, waiting 24 to 48 hours, and then taking misoprostol by placing the pill in the vagina, under the tongue or in the cheek, the WHO states. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, which is required to maintain pregnancy, and misoprostol induces contractions, which can trigger bleeding, uterine cramping and pain, similar to a miscarriage, according to Whole Woman's Health.

The FDA has approved the use of mifepristone (brand name Mifeprex) and misoprostol within 10 weeks of the person's last menstrual period. As of 2021, the agency has allowed people to receive these medications by mail, rather than needing to get them in person from a health provider at a specialized clinic, The New York Times reported. Providers can prescribe the pills and mail them after a telemedicine appointment with the patient. 

Patients can access such telehealth services through the Planned Parenthood website, as well as through European organizations such as AidAccess, Simon said. In addition to undergoing an initial telehealth consultation, patients should ideally be able to access a medical provider throughout their abortion so they can check in and ensure that the procedure is proceeding normally, she said.   

"Medication abortion is a safe and highly effective method of pregnancy termination," according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. If administered by the ninth week of pregnancy, "the pregnancy is terminated successfully 99.6% of the time, with a 0.4% risk of major complications, and an associated mortality rate of less than 0.001 percent (0.00064%)."

Several states restrict at-home access to abortion pills; to see which states, check the Kaiser Family Foundation website. 

Additional resources

Visit ineedanA.com to find an abortion clinic in the U.S. Abortion funds and other resources can be found at abortionfunds.org and apiarycollective.org. People seeking support for managing a miscarriage or abortion can visit mahotline.org. For counseling about all your pregnancy options, visit all-options.org/find-support/talkline/. For questions about legal rights and self-managed abortion, visit www.reprolegalhelpline.org. 

This article is for informational purposes only, and is not meant to offer medical advice. 

Originally published on Live Science. 

An abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy, which can happen spontaneously, as in the case of a miscarriage, or can happen when the pregnancy is ended by medical or surgical means. In these latter cases, the abortion method depends on the stage of pregnancy, among other factors.

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and thus eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in the US. 

How are abortions induced?

There are a few different ways an abortion can be induced, depending on how far along the pregnancy is and whether the pregnancy is inside or outside the uterus, said Dr. Deborah Powell, a professor of laboratory medicine and pathology at the University of Minnesota and member of the National Academies' Committee on Reproductive Health Services: Assessing the Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the U.S.

The majority of abortions occur within the first trimester, meaning the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, or very soon after, Powell said.

The methods are as follows, according to a 2018 report on the safety of abortion care in the United States, authored by the National Academies' Committee on Reproductive Health Services: 

• Medication abortion, or "medical" abortion: This method is FDA approved for pregnancies up to 10 weeks' gestation and involves two medications that are taken 24 to 48 hours apart. The first pill is mifepristone, which blocks the production of progesterone, an important hormone for maintaining pregnancy. The second pill is misoprostol, which induces uterine contractions that empty the uterus. (Note that, in some cases, misoprostol may be prescribed on its own, according to the World Health Organization, WHO.
• Aspiration abortion (also referred to as surgical abortion, suction curettage, or dilation and curettage (D&C)): Aspiration is the most common abortion method used in the U.S., accounting for about 68% of abortions in 2013, and it can be used up to 16 weeks' gestation. This procedure involves dilating the cervix so that a hollow curette, or tube can be inserted into the uterus. At the other end of the tube, a hand-held syringe or an electric device is applied to create suction and empty the uterus. The procedure generally takes less than 10 minutes. 
• Dilation and evacuation (D&E): This type of abortion is usually performed after 14 weeks' gestation and involves dilation of the cervix followed by suction and/or forceps extraction to empty the uterus.
• Induction abortion (also referred to as "medical" abortion): This method involves the use of medications to induce labor and delivery of the fetus. The most effective regimens use higher doses of the same medications used for medical abortions done earlier in pregnancy: mifepristone and misoprostol.

Are abortions safe?

"Abortions are very safe," Powell told Live Science. "Abortions are as safe as, if not safer than, a normal pregnancy that goes to term." 

Generally, all methods are expected to cause vaginal bleeding during and after the abortion, according to the National Academies' 2018 report. 

A medication abortion will often cause heavy cramping and abdominal pain, similar to the pain felt during a miscarriage, and the method may cause the patient to pass blood clots and have what seems like an extremely heavy period that can last for up to two weeks, Powell said. Over the counter anti-inflammatory medications can help relieve the pain. 

Complications due to any kind of abortion are extremely rare, occurring in less than a fraction of a percent of patients in most cases, according to the report. The risk of complications increases slightly with the duration of the pregnancy. 

"Abortions that are done very late in pregnancy are very infrequent and are usually done by physicians," Powell said. Late pregnancy abortions may be done because of an underlying medical condition in the pregnant patient or the fetus that puts them at risk of complications should the pregnancy continue, "but the abortion procedure itself is not unsafe," she said. 

The only time abortions may be considered unsafe is when they are performed in non-health care settings by people who are not medical professionals or trained health care providers, Powell explained. In these situations, there is a risk of serious and harmful infection if the attempt to remove a pregnancy is performed with non-sterile instruments or in a non-sterile environment. 

What happens after an abortion?

Based on a thorough review of the scientific literature and studies from around the world, researchers of the 2018 report agreed that abortion does not appear to have a negative impact on future fertility or the risk of future pregnancy complications, preterm births or breast cancer development. Abortions don't pose a significant risk to patients' mental health, either, the report authors concluded. 

Objective, controlled studies of pregnancies and abortions in clinical settings similar to those found in the United States have found that abortions have no effect on future fertility. 

The authors of the 2018 report also found no associations between abortions and future pregnancy complications, including stillbirth, ectopic pregnancies (pregnancy that occurs outside the uterus) or gestational hypertension (high blood pressure in pregnancy). A 2014 study published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology reported that the risk of hemorrhaging during a vaginal delivery was slightly higher among women who had a prior medication abortion (but not other kinds of abortion) compared with women in their first pregnancy. However, the medical reason for this heightened risk remains unclear and other studies have yet to back up the finding, according to the 2018 report. 

There is also no association between abortions and future preterm births, no matter when in gestation the abortion occurred or how many abortions the person has had in the past. That said, a 2017 study published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology found evidence that becoming pregnant shortly after any abortion — within less than 6 months — was associated with a slightly increased risk of preterm birth (about 1.5% higher), based on the medical records of nearly 20,000 Finnish women. However, it's unclear if the association was causal or due to other maternal factors, such as obesity or gestational diabetes. 

Presumably, women who undergo abortions because of fetal abnormalities or other medical complications are likely to carry more emotional burden than women who abort unwanted pregnancies. Studies have found that the rate of mental health problems for women with an unwanted pregnancy were the same whether they had an abortion or gave birth, the 2018 report concluded. 

Several leading health care organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the WHO, have issued guidelines on what preabortion and postabortion care should look like, as described in the National Academies' 2018 report. 

The organizations agree that patients should receive individualized, sensitive communication and comprehensive education about the risks and benefits of available abortion options and how each procedure is performed. Health care providers should also confirm with patients that the decision is voluntary and provide support for a patient's emotional needs before and after the procedure. This care should include counseling on appropriate postabortion contraception options. 

Who gets abortions?

Approximately 862,320 abortions were performed in 2017 in the United States, down 7% from 926,190 in 2014, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research and policy organization focused on reproductive health and rights. That's a rate of about 1.35% of women ages 15 to 44 — the lowest rate ever in the U.S.

The most recent demographic data on abortions is from the Guttmacher Institute's 2014 nationwide survey. The survey found that the majority of abortion patients in the U.S. were between the ages of 20 and 29, heterosexual, white, had given birth at least once before and were had an income below the federal poverty level. Just over half of abortion patients (51%) were using contraceptive methods when they became pregnant. 

Although data suggests that the majority of abortions performed in the U.S. are due to unwanted pregnancies, some abortions occur because of medical complications that cause the fetus to become unviable or present a serious health risk for the pregnant person. The exact number of abortions that occur for such reasons is unclear, but it happens frequently enough that many health care providers are concerned that their patients' lives could be put at serious risk should abortions become illegal, Powell said. 

For example, she said, an ectopic pregnancy, or pregnancy occurring outside the uterus (most often in a fallopian tube), is rare but would undoubtedly cause severe and even life-threatening complications for the pregnant person if the pregnancy is not terminated. 

Ectopic pregnancies are just one example of many potential reasons why an abortion may be medically necessary for the health of the pregnant patient, and it would be impossible to create legislation that acknowledges all those scenarios, Powell said. In short, "abortion is health care," she said, “and should be supervised by health care providers."

History of abortion in the US

On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade, thus eliminating the constitutional right to abortion that was established in the country in 1973. This means that states can now set their own abortion laws.

The original 1973 court case was initially raised to challenge a Texas law that banned all abortions except in the case that the pregnancy was deemed life-threatening to the patient. Although the U.S Supreme Court's ruling establishing a constitutional right to abortion across the nation, it still allowed states to impose regulations on abortions in the second trimester and prohibit procedure in the third trimester, under certain circumstances.

Read more about Roe V. Wade and the history of abortion here at Live Science.

Where is abortion legal in the US?

Abortion is legal in the following states:

• Washington
• Oregon
• California 
• Minnesota 
• Illinois 
• New York
• Vermont
• New Jersey 
• Connecticut
• Alaska 
• Colorado
• Delaware 
• Hawaii
• Kansas 
• Maine
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Mexico
• Rhode Island

Abortion is illegal in the following states:

• South Dakota
• Missouri 
• Oklahoma
• Arkansas
• Louisiana
• Mississippi 
• Alabama

In other states, abortion is soon-to-be banned or under serious threat. Discover abortion laws by state at the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Editor's note: This new article was published on August 3, 2022 by Live Science contributor Alice Ball following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Additional resources

Wired has put together a guide with resources for navigating abortions and abortion questions.

To learn more about the science and history of abortion rights, check out this Scientific American page for a curated selection of several opinion and features articles.

The Guttmacher Institute has statistics and other information about abortions in the U.S., including  information on rates, safety, demographics, insurance, laws and more.

In a leaked draft opinion made public Monday (May 2), the U.S. Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that has protected abortion rights in the U.S. for nearly 50 years. Although the leaked draft is not necessarily the final opinion of the Court, it has sparked a wave of reactions from both abortion rights and pro-life advocates. If the final opinion mirrors the draft, it would drastically change abortion rights in America.

Here are answers to questions about what could happen if the landmark ruling is overturned.

 What happens if Roe v. Wade is overturned? 

If Roe v. Wade were overturned, each state would determine its own laws regarding abortion. More than 20 U.S. states have laws that could restrict access to abortion without Roe v. Wade. These include 13 states with "trigger laws" that would immediately make abortion illegal if Roe v. Wade is overturned and nine states that still have abortion bans on the books from before Roe v. Wade was enacted (which are currently not enforced), according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization for sexual and reproductive health research and advocacy.

Where would abortion be illegal?  

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion in the event that Roe v. Wade is overturned. These include 22 states that already have laws in place that make it near-certain that they will ban abortion, including trigger laws, pre-Roe bans on abortion, laws that ban abortion after six weeks (before many people know they are pregnant) and constitutional amendments that prohibit abortion rights. These states include: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

In addition, four states — Florida, Indiana, Montana and Nebraska — appear likely to ban abortion in light of recent actions to limit access to abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

In contrast, the 16 states with laws in place to protect the right to abortion include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Can people get abortion out of state? 

Currently, yes, people can cross state lines to access abortion care in a state that allows it, provided they have the time and resources to do so. In the months after Texas passed a near-complete abortion ban in September 2021, disallowing abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, about 1,400 pregnant people each month traveled to Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oklahoma to receive an abortion, The New York Times reported.

However, some states may soon restrict out-of-state abortions, and Missouri has already attempted to.

Missouri lawmakers recently proposed legislation that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a state resident have an abortion, whether or not that individual resides in Missouri, Politico reported. The law was initially blocked in the state’s legislature, but it could gain traction again if Roe falls, experts told The Guardian.

Are there abortion options that don't require going to a doctor's office? 

Yes, "self-managed abortions" describe a situation where someone induces their own abortion outside of a medical setting, according to Whole Woman's Health. Self-managed abortions involve taking abortion pills called mifepristone and misoprostol; these drugs are either taken in combination or misoprostol can be taken by itself, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In general, taking pills for abortion is known as "medication abortion." 

The combination regimen involves taking mifepristone, orally, waiting 24 to 48 hours, and then taking misoprostol by placing the pill in the vagina, under the tongue or in the cheek, the WHO states. Mifepristone blocks a hormone called progesterone, which is required to maintain pregnancy, and misoprostol induces contractions, which can trigger bleeding, uterine cramping and pain, similar to a miscarriage, according to Whole Woman's Health. 

"Medication abortion is a safe and highly effective method of pregnancy termination," according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. If administered by the ninth week of pregnancy, "the pregnancy is terminated successfully 99.6% of the time, with a 0.4% risk of major complications, and an associated mortality rate of less than 0.001 percent (0.00064%)."

Misoprostol taken alone can also effectively and safely end a pregnancy, although the combination regimen is specifically approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Whole Woman's Health website notes.  

The FDA has approved the use of mifepristone (brand name Mifeprex) and misoprostol within 10 weeks of the person's last menstrual period. As of 2021, the agency has allowed people to receive these medications by mail, rather than needing to get them in person from a health provider at a specialized clinic, The New York Times reported. Providers can prescribe the pills and mail them after a telemedicine appointment with the patient.

However, several states restrict at-home access to abortion pills by forbidding the mailing of pills; requiring pills to be picked up in-person; or setting an earlier limit on when the pills may be taken, meaning earlier than the 10 weeks specified by the FDA. Some states also ban telemedicine appointments for abortion care. Pregnant people in states with such restrictions have, in the past, traveled to a permissive state and received the pills by mail there, instead, according to the Times.

To see a map of which states have restrictions on abortion pills, check the Kaiser Family Foundation website.

How would abortion bans affect the rates of the procedure? 

Exactly how much abortion rates would fall after Roe v. Wade being overturned is hard to predict. That's because pregnant people who live in states where abortion is illegal may still order pills online, or seek potentially dangerous illegal abortions, according to The New York Times. It's also possible that more clinics would open in areas where abortion is legal to treat patients from out of state, the Times reported.

By one estimate, legal abortions in the country would decline by 14%, according to the Times. That's based on research of the effects of abortion clinic closures, which make it more difficult for patients to receive in-clinic abortions. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, the average distance that a person seeking an abortion would need to travel to reach a clinic would increase from about 35 miles to 279 miles (56 to 449  kilometers), the Times reported.

How do abortion bans affect pregnant people? 

Studies have found that preventing people from obtaining wanted abortions can have serious adverse consequences, including mental, physical and financial effects. In one study known as the Turnaway Study, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, analyzed information from 1,000 U.S. women who sought abortions and either received an abortion or were denied an abortion because they were beyond their states' gestational limit. The study found that women who were denied an abortion and gave birth were more likely to have serious complications, including eclampsia (seizures tied to high blood pressure in pregnancy), postpartum hemorrhage and death, than women who received an abortion.

In addition, being denied an abortion was linked with increases in anxiety, stress and lower self-esteem shortly after the denial, compared with women who received an abortion; these increases went away after six months.

People who were denied an abortion also experienced financial hardship, including an increase in household poverty that lasted at least four years, the researchers said.

Originally published on Live Science. 

Editor's note: This is story will continue to be updated. 

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the landmark case of Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 (1973)), in which seven of the nine sitting justices agreed that the Constitution protects the right to abortion. The case was initially raised to challenge a Texas law that banned all abortions except in the case that the pregnancy was deemed life-threatening to the patient, according to Oyez, a judicial archive maintained by the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Although the court's ruling established a constitutional right to abortion that applied across the nation, it still allowed states to impose regulations on abortions in the second trimester and even prohibit the procedure in the third trimester, under certain circumstances. 

In a case called Planned Parenthood v. Casey (505 US 833 (1992)) that took place in 1992, the Supreme Court upheld the core decisions made in Roe but stated that state restrictions on abortion are unconstitutional if they place "undue burden" on the person seeking the procedure, according to Oyez. This ruling still forbid states from banning the majority of abortions, but it broadened the states' power to regulate the procedure.

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in a 6-3 ruling and thus eliminated the constitutional right to abortion.

Related: Is a 'fetal heartbeat' really a heartbeat at 6 weeks?

Who was Jane Roe?

In 1970, a woman living in Texas — referred to by the pseudonym "Jane Roe" in court documents — filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, according to Oyez. 

After the case's conclusion, several news outlets reported that the plaintiff was Norma McCorvey, a Texas woman in her early 20s; McCorvey later came forward and confirmed these reports, according to the LA Times.  

McCorvey sought an abortion in Texas in 1969 after she'd become pregnant for the third time. The child that resulted from her first pregnancy was adopted and raised by McCorvey's mother, and the second child was adopted by another family, according to the LA Times. McCorvey was denied an abortion for her third pregnancy because, at the time, a Texas law made abortions a crime, except in the case that the pregnancy was deemed life-threatening by a doctor. 

Other Texas laws allowed abortions in the case of rape or incest, so at the time, McCorvey's friends suggested that she claim her pregnancy was a result of rape, but she'd had no means to back such a claim, according to the National Constitution Center.

McCorvey then sought to have an illegal abortion but was unsuccessful. Several months into her pregnancy, she met attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, who were building a case to challenge anti-abortion laws in Texas. McCorvey agreed to be the plaintiff in a lawsuit they filed against the district attorney of Dallas County, where McCorvey lived. The case would later be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to the LA Times. 

McCorvey carried out her pregnancy and delivered her baby before the first arguments were presented in the highest court of law. Her child was born in a Dallas hospital in 1970 and then placed for adoption, according to History. 51 years later, in 2021, a woman named Shelley Lynn Thornton came forward as the "Roe baby," The Atlantic reported. 

McCorvey died in 2017 at age 69, The New York Times reported. 

Details of the case

The initial suit in Texas was filed on behalf of McCorvey and all the other women "who were or might become pregnant and want to consider all options," according to History. The plaintiff argued that the Texas abortion laws were "unconstitutionally vague and abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments," according to Oyez.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled in favor of McCorvey, stating that, yes, the Texas law was unconstitutional because it violated the right to privacy covered in the Ninth Amendment, according to the National Constitution Center.

(The Ninth Amendment states that "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Broadly speaking, that means that citizens aren't restricted to only rights listed in the Constitution; unlisted rights still belong to the citizens.)

Texas appealed the court's decision to the Supreme Court in 1970, and the initial arguments were heard in December 1971 and the case was reargued in October 1972. Finally, the court decided the case on Jan. 22, 1973, ruling 7-2 in favor of Roe, according to Oyez. 

Earlier court cases had drawn on language in the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to argue that citizens have certain "zones of privacy," according to the National Constitution Center. These zones of privacy covered activities such as contraception, marriage and child rearing. For example, in 1965, the Supreme Court used this justification to overturn a law banning the distribution of birth control to married couples, and in 1972, on a similar premise, it struck out a law forbidding the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried adults, according to History.

In Roe v. Wade, the justices deemed that these zones of privacy are "broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy," according to the National Constitution Center. 

In its decision, the court stated that states could not regulate any abortions in the first trimester, stating that only the patient and their doctor could be involved in that decision. However, the state may regulate abortions in the latter two trimesters, for the sake of protecting the pregnant person's health and "protecting the potentiality of human life." 

"In the second trimester, the state may impose regulations on abortion that are reasonably related to maternal health," accoridng to Oyez. "In the third trimester, once the fetus reaches the point of 'viability,' a state may regulate abortions or prohibit them entirely, so long as the laws contain exceptions for cases when abortion is necessary to save the life or health of the mother." 

In 1992, the court's ruling on the Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey case adjusted this trimester framework. This later case affirmed that citizens hold a constitutional right to abortion under the Fourteenth Amendment and said that the right may not be unduly interfered with prior to the fetus reaching "viability," according to the National Constition Center.  

In this context, to place an "undue burden" on a woman seeking abortion is to introduce a "substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability," Oyez states.

Originally published on Live Science.

An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus or not within the uterine cavity. The word "ectopic" refers to something medically that is in the wrong place or position. Ectopic pregnancies cannot be carried to term, and it is not possible to transplant an ectopic pregnancy to the uterus. Termination of the pregnancy is the only treatment; if not aborted immediately, an ectopic pregnancy can be life-threatening.

In more than 90% of ectopic pregnancies, the fertilized egg implants within a fallopian tube, the narrow tube that links the ovaries and the uterus. This is also called a tubal pregnancy. In rare cases, the fertilized egg can implant in the cervix or in a scar from a previous cesarean section, according to the Mayo Clinic. Rarely, a fertilized egg can attach directly to an ovary, the cervix or an organ in the abdomen, such as the abdominal wall. 

Ectopic pregnancies never develop into a full-term fetus. When an embryo implants in a location other than the uterine wall, it cannot develop normally. Locations other than the uterus don't have enough space or the right tissue for the embryo to grow, according to Planned Parenthood.  

"The uterus is a unique organ that can stretch dramatically with a growing pregnancy," said Dr. Jennifer Kickham, an obstetrician and gynecologist and the medical director of the outpatient gynecology clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "No other tissue in the body has the ability to grow to accommodate a nine-pound baby or twins," she told Live Science. 

Because of this, an ectopic pregnancy can be dangerous and requires immediate medical attention for its termination. As the embryo grows in an ectopic pregnancy, it can cause the organ it attaches to, such as a fallopian tube or an ovary, to rupture. If this occurs, it can lead to severe internal bleeding and infection. In some cases, this is fatal, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

Despite the dangers, most people who experience an ectopic pregnancy can be treated and have normal pregnancies in the future, according to Planned Parenthood. 

In the United States, 1% to 3% of all pregnancies are ectopic; it is more common than people realize, according to ACOG.

What are the symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy?

Symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy most commonly appear six to 10 weeks after a missed menstrual period. Usually, the most common signs of an ectopic pregnancy are vaginal bleeding and/or pain in the abdomen or pelvis, especially on one side of the body, according to the Mayo Clinic. 

Some people may have shoulder pain or lower back pain. There may also be some dizziness or fainting, because of blood loss. Specific symptoms can depend on where blood collects, and some people may have no symptoms at all until a fallopian tube ruptures. When that happens, heavy bleeding in the abdomen can cause lightheadedness, fainting and shock.

What causes an ectopic pregnancy?

Anything that affects the ability of the egg to travel down the fallopian tube into the uterus — such as prior damage to the fallopian tubes, tubal abnormalities or infections that may block the tube — can make an ectopic pregnancy more likely. 

The following conditions may increase the risk of an ectopic pregnancy: 

• A prior ectopic pregnancy.
• A history of infertility.
• A history of sexually transmitted diseases, such as infections caused by gonorrhea or chlamydia.
• A history of pelvic inflammatory disease, a condition that can damage the fallopian tubes, uterus and other parts of the pelvis. 
• A history of endometriosis, a condition in which cells that normally line the uterus implant and grow elsewhere in the body, such as the ovaries or bladder.
• Scars inside the pelvis from a burst appendix or past surgeries. 
• Pregnancy while using an intrauterine device (IUD) or after having "tubes tied," which is known as a tubal sterilization or tubal ligation. 
• A history of smoking cigarettes. 
• A history of multiple sexual partners, as this may increase the risk of pelvic infections. 

Ectopic pregnancies are likely caused by a combination of prior medical history and lifestyle factors, and are not caused by genetic factors, Kickham said. However, about half of ectopic pregnancies occur in cases where there are no known risk factors, according to ACOG.

As described above, anything that affects the functioning of the fallopian tubes, such as prior tubal surgeries or pelvic infections, can increase the risk of an ectopic pregnancy, as do factors that can slow movement in the fallopian tube, such as cigarette smoking.

How do doctors diagnose an ectopic pregnancy?

To diagnose an ectopic pregnancy, doctors may administer a blood test to someone who has vaginal bleeding and pelvic pain, to determine levels of a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which is present only during pregnancy.

Home pregnancy tests detect hCG in the urine, but if an ectopic pregnancy is suspected, doctors need to measure the levels of hCG in the blood. In a normal pregnancy, hCG levels roughly double in a period of 48 to 72 hours, but levels may rise more slowly in an ectopic pregnancy, Kickham said. 

In addition, a person suspected of experiencing an ectopic pregnancy may get a transvaginal ultrasound, in which a wand-like device is inserted into the vagina to examine the reproductive organs, including the uterus, ovaries, cervix and fallopian tubes. Ultrasound uses high-frequency sound waves to create images that can identify whether a pregnancy is located inside or outside the uterus. 

Sometimes, a transvaginal ultrasound can reveal if the embryo is growing outside the uterus, though it can't always detect an ectopic pregnancy. But if levels of hCG are between 1,500 and 2,000 mIU/mL and the ultrasound can't detect an intrauterine gestational sac, an ectopic pregnancy is suspected even if the embryo is not directly observed, researchers reported in 2005 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

An ectopic pregnancy diagnosis can be upsetting, Kickham said. Some patients may ask, "Is it possible to move the pregnancy to the uterus?" she said, but unfortunately, there is no medical technology available to move the pregnancy to the uterine cavity, and abortion is the only treatment. 

What are the risks of an ectopic pregnancy?

Ectopic pregnancies are the leading cause of maternal death during the first trimester and account for 10% to 15% of all pregnancy-related deaths, according to a study published in 2013 in the journal International Women's Health. 

Although ectopic pregnancies usually are detected in the first trimester, they are sometimes not discovered until the second trimester. However, these instances are extremely rare, and they are also treated by terminating the pregnancy, researchers reported in 2017 in the journal The BMJ.  

How are ectopic pregnancies terminated?

If there is no danger that the fallopian tube will rupture, treatment for an ectopic pregnancy typically involves medication — for example, an injection of methotrexate, a drug used in cancer treatment. This medication stops the growth of the embryo, allowing the body to resorb the tissue. A benefit of this treatment is that it does not affect the fallopian tubes, meaning it should not interfere with future pregnancies. 

Blood is drawn twice, on the fourth and seventh days after the methotrexate injection, so that doctors can see that levels of hCG have dropped by 15% or more during this time period, Kickham said. 

If hCG levels have not been reduced by at least 15%, a second injection of methotrexate is needed to make sure that hCG levels are falling. An ectopic pregnancy ends when hCG levels have dropped to zero. 

However, some people may need to undergo a surgical abortion to end the ectopic pregnancy, Kickham said. Surgery may involve removing the entire fallopian tube, for example. This operation can be done laparoscopically, which is a form of minimally invasive surgery that requires a small incision, which is usually done on an outpatient basis and has a shorter recovery time than a more invasive surgical procedure. 

In some situations, surgeons may cut a larger incision in the abdomen to end the ectopic pregnancy. Sometimes, the fallopian tube may be removed if it's damaged, and other times, it can be surgically repaired. 

During twin pregnancies, it's possible — but rare — for one embryo to implant in the uterus while a second implants at an ectopic location, outside of the uterus. When a woman has a heterotopic pregnancy — in which one twin grows in the uterus and the other twin is an ectopic pregnancy, usually in the fallopian tube — it is too risky to treat the woman with medication. In such cases, surgery is necessary to remove the embryo in the fallopian tube, but the other twin can continue developing in the uterus, Kickham said. 

Usually, someone who has had an ectopic pregnancy is encouraged to wait at least three months before attempting to become pregnant again, Kickham said. Because an ectopic pregnancy is a type of early pregnancy loss, it takes time to heal from it, both physically and emotionally. 

Additional resources

Learn how to recognize the warning signs of an ectopic pregnancy in a guide from The New York Times. Explore resources for early pregnancy loss at the support group Share Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support Inc. In recent years, some anti-abortion legislation has erroneously referred to ectopic pregnancies as viable, or has sought to prohibit their termination despite the deadly risk that would pose to the mother. One such bill was introduced in Missouri in March 2022 by Missouri State Assembly Rep. Brian Seitz, and another was proposed by the Ohio State House of Representatives in 2019. 

This article is for informational purposes only, and is not meant to offer medical advice. 

Bibliography

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (2018, February). Ectopic pregnancy: Frequently asked questions. https://www.acog.org/womens-health/faqs/ectopic-pregnancy 

Mayo Clinic. (n.d.). Ectopic pregnancy. Retrieved March 11, 2022, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ectopic-pregnancy/symptoms-causes/syc-20372088

Planned Parenthood. (n.d.). Ectopic pregnancy. Retrieved March 11, 2022, from https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/pregnancy/ectopic-pregnancy

Murray, H. “Diagnosis and Treatment of Ectopic Pregnancy.” Canadian Medical Association Journal, vol. 173, no. 8, 2005, pp. 905–912., https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.050222.

Lawani, Osaheni, et al. “Ectopic Pregnancy: A Life-Threatening Gynecological Emergency.” International Journal of Women's Health, 2013, p. 515., https://doi.org/10.2147/ijwh.s49672.

Tucker, Katherine, et al. “Delayed Diagnosis and Management of Second Trimester Abdominal Pregnancy.” BMJ Case Reports, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2017-221433.

Sneed, Annie. “How to Recognize and Treat an Ectopic Pregnancy.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Apr. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/article/ectopic-pregnancy-guide.html.

Share Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support, 8 Mar. 2022, https://nationalshare.org/.

House Bill No. 2810, General Assembly of the state of Missouri, https://www.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills221/hlrbillspdf/5798H.01I.pdf.

“House Bill 413.” House Bill 413 | The Ohio Legislature, https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/legislation-summary?id=GA133-HB-413.

Originally published on Live Science.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on May 17, 2019 and updated on Sept 1, 2021, before the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, thus eliminating the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. Therefore, the legal information in this article may no longer be accurate.

So far this year, 11 states have enacted 90 laws meant to restrict abortion — the most in a single year since the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. 

Now, lawmakers in nine U.S. states have passed laws banning abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, or at six weeks of pregnancy, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization for sexual and reproductive health research and advocacy.

But what exactly do we mean when we talk about a "fetal heartbeat" at six weeks of pregnancy? Although some people might picture a heart-shaped organ beating inside a fetus, this is not the case.

Rather, at six weeks of pregnancy, an ultrasound can detect "a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart of the baby," said Dr. Saima Aftab, medical director of the Fetal Care Center at Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami. This flutter happens because the group of cells that will become the future "pacemaker" of the heart gain the capacity to fire electrical signals, she said.

Related: Are you pregnant? 12 early signs of pregnancy

But the heart is far from fully formed at this stage, and the "beat" isn't audible; if doctors put a stethoscope up to a woman's belly this early on in her pregnancy, they would not hear a heartbeat, Aftab told Live Science. (What's more, it isn't until the eighth week of pregnancy that the baby is called a fetus; prior to that, it's still considered an embryo, according to the Cleveland Clinic.)

It's been only in the last few decades that doctors have even been able to detect this flutter at six weeks, thanks to the use of more-sophisticated ultrasound technologies, Aftab said. Previously, the technology wasn't advanced enough to detect the flutter that early on in pregnancy.

Although a lot of weight seems to be put on the detection of this flutter, "by no means does it translate to viability of the heart" or viability of the pregnancy, Aftab said.

Related: Having a baby: Stages of pregnancy by trimester

The heart still has a lot of development to undergo before it is fully formed. Indeed, the entire first trimester of pregnancy is a time of "organogenesis," or the formation of organs, Aftab said.

After the detection of the flutter at six weeks, the heart muscle continues to develop over the next four to six weeks, undergoing the folding and bending that needs to happen for the heart to take its final shape, Aftab said.

"A lot of the heart development is still ongoing" during the first trimester, she said.

• 11 Big Fat Pregnancy Myths
• Top 10 Amazing Facts About Your Heart
• 11 Surprising Facts About the Circulatory System

Editor's note: This article was updated on August 3, 2022 by Live Science contributor Alice Ball following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

First 100 days

President Donald Trump will mark 100 days in office on April 29, and though it is still early on in his administration, he has enacted policies or signaled his stance on a variety of science issues, ranging from climate change to space exploration.

We reached out to experts across different fields and asked them to grade President Trump's performance in his first 100 days in office. Here is his report card when it comes to science issues.

Climate change

Before he became president, Donald Trump's views on climate change flip-flopped.

In 2009, Trump and three of his children — Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric — signed an advertisement in The New York Times to say they "supported meaningful and effective measures… to fight climate change," which they called "scientifically irrefutable."

However, in 2012, he tweeted that global warming is a Chinese hoax concocted "in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."

These days, Trump's actions toward addressing climate change aren't promising. "Since becoming president, I don't think he's ever addressed the [climate change] issue directly — but the nature of his appointees says a lot," said Pushker Kharecha, a climate scientist at the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York.

For instance, Trump appointed Scott Pruitt to the Environmental Protection Agency and Rick Perry to the Department of Energy, "two well-known climate change deniers [or] minimizers," Kharecha told Live Science.

"And the proposed White House budget, if accepted by Congress, would disproportionately slash funding for key federal Earth science research programs," Kharecha said. Trump also signed an executive order that would roll back the Clean Power Plan, a regulation designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change.

"To put this into context, all of this is happening at a time when essentially the entire rest of the world recognizes that not only is human-caused climate change very real, it's reaching crisis-level urgency," Kharecha said.

Because Trump and his administration haven't properly acknowledged the reality that climate change is primarily caused by humans, "much less said or done anything to address it, I give him a big "F" on this issue," Kharecha said.

Trump also scored an "F" from Edward Rubin, a professor of engineering, public policy and mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "The science clearly shows that sustained actions are needed now to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Rubin said. "U.S. leadership is critical to the global effort. The president’s policies are opposite to what the science compels."

Trump earned a "D" from Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University. "[But] that’s only because the term isn’t over," Mann told Live Science in an email. "He’d have to ace the final (demonstrating a real recognition of the scientific evidence and its implications) to avoid an 'F.'"

—Reporting by Laura Geggel, Senior Writer

Coal

Trump has promoted coal energy and coal mining jobs above other cleaner energy sources, leading scientists interviewed by Live Science to give him failing grades in this sector.

"Basic science tells us that coal is by far the dirtiest fuel in terms of both greenhouse gas emissions and fatal air pollutants," Pushker Kharecha, a climate scientist at the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City, told Live Science. "To knowingly promote such an energy source is a big step backward."

Electricity generation is associated with the premature deaths of more than 50,000 people every year in the United States, according to a 2013 study published in the journal Atmospheric Environment. "We can safely say that most of these deaths are due to coal burning, since it produces most of the fatal pollutants in this sector," Kharecha said.

Moreover, while Trump talked about clean coal during the second presidential debate, the United States has only one coal power plant equipped with carbon capture and storage, a mechanism that captures coal pollutants before they enter the atmosphere, he said. The plant, located in Texas, opened in January 2017, so it's too soon to say whether it will be a successful clean power plant, Kharecha said.

On March 28, Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, which would have pushed the national away from burning coal and toward cleaner energy sources such as natural gas and even renewables like wind and solar. Even so, this coal-energy boost may be short-lived, experts said. Since the early 2000s, natural gas has produced a growing percentage of the country's energy generation, and in 2016 natural gas produced more energy than coal did, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Natural gas is less expensive than coal, and is expected to surpass it in the long run.

"Either knowingly or unwittingly, Trump has been selling false promises to 'coal country,' saying he'll bring their jobs back," Kharecha said. "However, it's very unlikely that coal will make a major comeback anytime soon."

For these reasons, Kharecha gave Trump an "F" on coal.

Edward Rubin, a professor of engineering, public policy and mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, also failed Trump in coal science. Rubin noted that Trump approved legislation that did away with an Obama administration regulation protecting waterways from coal mining waste.

"The physical and environmental sciences say it’s not good to dump coal mining wastes into rivers and streams, and to continue emitting air pollutants, including carbon dioxide," Rubin said. "The social sciences say it’s not good to give coal miners the false hope that jobs lost due to the market forces of automation and competition from cheaper energy sources will magically return."

Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, gave Trump a "D" in coal science.

"There is still time to turn things around," Mann said Live Science in an email. "If he cared about coal workers (rather than the profits of his coal baron friends), he would institute job training programs to help coal workers, their families and communities transition from a relict profession that has no future."

—Reporting by Laura Geggel, Senior Writer

Health care

When Trump took office, he vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (dubbed Obamacare) in his first 100 days in office. So far, he has fallen far short of that goal. Trump supported a "repeal and replace" bill so broadly unpopular that it did not pass out of a Republican-controlled Congress, and was supported by only 17 percent of the public in a Quinnipiac poll leading up to the vote. The bill died before a vote was called.

Trump's lack of interest in or expertise in health care policy, along with his willingness to hand the process over to Paul Ryan, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, clearly hindered his ability to pass a replacement bill, said Mark Peterson, a health care expert and chair of the Department of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

"Frankly, it was quite astonishing that he would say, as he did on Feb. 27, that 'Nobody knew health care could be so complicated,'" Peterson, who gave Trump a "D" on the issue, told Live Science. "Any sentient individual who had any exposure to the health care system in the U.S. and legislative efforts to grapple with it knows immediately how complicated it is."

However, Trump's efforts were also impeded by the Republican Congress mishandling the legislative process, Peterson added.

Another expert, Gerald F. Kominski, a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at UCLA, gave Trump failing grades.

"Trump has done nothing of substance on health care," Kominski said.

Even if Trump had managed to usher the Republican bill through Congress, it would have fallen far short of the promises he made on the campaign trail, said David Cutler, an economics professor at Harvard University who was President Barack Obama's senior health care advisor during his campaign.

Trump promised a plan "that would be 'more, better, and cheaper,'" said Cutler, who stated that Trump deserves an "F" on the issue.

Instead, Trump never introduced a new plan, backed one that would deprive at least 20 million people of coverage and raise prices for others, Cutler and Peterson said, adding that he hasn't followed through on controlling drug costs and is now threatening to allow the health care exchange markets to fall apart.

Of course, 100 days is not enough time to measure accomplishments, Peterson added. But so far, "health care has been a bust for the president," Peterson said.

Republicans are now considering putting forward an amendment to their original bill that would allow states to opt out of Obamacare requirements to cover people with preexisting conditions without charging exorbitant rates. (Members of Congress and their aides would be exempt from these waivers under the new amendment.)

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., also panned Trump's efforts on health care, giving the president an "F" on the issue.

"He has completely abandoned his pledge to repeal Obamacare, and also his pledge to replace Obamacare with health savings accounts," Cannon told Live Science.

—Reporting by Tia Ghose, Senior Writer

Opioids

During his 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Trump vowed to address the country's opioid epidemic. However, as president, Trump has taken steps to address this issue only in recent weeks.

In 2015, there were more than 33,000 opioid overdose deaths in the United States from drugs such as prescription painkillers and heroin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

On March 29, 2017, Trump signed an executive order that created a presidential commission to combat the crisis, according to PBS. Later, in April, the administration awarded grants to states to help fight opioid addiction, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

HHS has prioritized five strategies in the department's efforts to address opioid addiction: "strengthening public health surveillance, advancing the practice of pain management, improving access to treatment and recovery services, targeting availability and distribution of overdose-reversing drugs, and supporting cutting-edge research."

The funds that the Trump administration has awarded to the states were initially allocated by President Barack Obama's administration as a part of the 21st Century Cures Act, said Dr. David Fiellin, a professor of medicine and public health at Yale University School of Medicine in Connecticut.

Awarding grants to states to help combat the escalating opioid crisis is "an excellent first step," said Dr. Gail D'Onofrio, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine, also at Yale University. D'Onofrio noted that she is happy that the funds first allocated by the Obama administration are being distributed by the current administration. [America's Opioid-Use Epidemic: 5 Startling Facts]

In addition, HHS's priorities are consistent with the initiatives outlined in Connecticut, D'Onofrio told Live Science. Connecticut was one of the 19 states that experienced a significant increase in opioid overdose deaths from 2014 to 2015, according to the CDC. In 2015, there were 800 opioid overdose deaths in the state.

Asked to grade the Trump administration's efforts thus far, D'Onofrio said, "I would give it an 'A' for beginning." 

—Reporting by Sara Miller, Staff Writer

Space

We still don't know a lot about President Trump's plans for exploring the final frontier.

Though the president has made aggressive moves in high-profile areas such as tax reform, immigration and health care during his first 100 days in office, he hasn't done much yet in the space-policy realm. So, it's probably premature to assess his ideas on space right now, no matter what your political leanings might be, according to experts.

"I think 'incomplete' is the right grade," said John Logsdon, a professor emeritus of political science and international affairs at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C. "There haven't been any substantive actions of any significance, unless you count the budget." [Presidential Visions for NASA Throughout History]

That 2018 federal budget request, released in March, does hold some clues about the president's presumed priorities. For example, the request eliminates funding for NASA's proposed asteroid-capture mission, and it cuts four NASA Earth science missions. Then there's the agency's "top line."

The Trump administration requested $19.1 billion for NASA — a decrease of 0.8 percent from 2017 space-spending levels. For space fans, that's an encouragingly modest drop, considering how deeply some other agencies were cut. For example, the proposed budget would slash funding for the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency by 18 percent and 31 percent, respectively.

"The signs so far, I think, have actually been good," Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told Live Science. "Given all the other cuts in non-defense discretionary [spending]," he added, NASA's "top line survived pretty well."

Logsdon agreed with that general assessment.

"Every indication is that Trump is going to be good for the space program," he told Live Science. "The specifics of 'good,' and in what ways, are to be determined. But he hasn't said a negative thing yet."

The president seems engaged on space, at least on some level, both Logsdon and Pace said. Logsdon noted that Trump didn't appear to be reading from a script during the signing ceremony for a NASA authorization act last month. (This bill, which is now law, covers fiscal year 2017. It is different than the 2018 budget request, which must still work its way through Congress.)

And Pace pointed out that the president has publicly discussed space several times recently. During Trump's weekly address on March 25, for example, he celebrated the achievements of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and voiced enthusiasm for its successor, the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in late 2018.

And on April 24, the president held a video call with record-breaking astronaut Peggy Whitson and her NASA colleague Jack Fischer, who are currently aboard the International Space Station. (In this vein: The fact that Trump has yet to nominate a NASA administrator is not an indication that he doesn't care about the space program, both Logsdon and Pace said. New presidents often wait several months before choosing a NASA chief.)

Still, details about the new administration's planned space policy remain hard to come by. The clues thus far point to the Trump White House prioritizing human spaceflight and "other space activities with broad public impact," Logsdon said. "And he seems interested in Mars."

Indeed, President Trump has repeatedly voiced support for crewed missions to the Red Planet, even telling Whitson during their chat that he'd like that milestone to occur while he's in the White House.

"I think he sees space as part of the American image, and as both a symbol and a practical representation of national power," Pace said. "And he'd like to see achievements happen on his watch."

President Trump and his team could also push for returning people to the moon, Pace added.

"I don't know whether moon or Mars — technical differences like that — really matter," he said. "Obviously it matters to the space community, but at the political level, [Trump administration officials] want to see things moving, and want to see them happen sooner rather than later, and on his watch."

Any discussion of a new president's first 100 days in office must come with a big disclaimer, of course: It's still very early days, and things could change dramatically.

"One hundred days is an arbitrary number," Logsdon said. "By 150 days, Kennedy had decided to send us to the moon." 

—Reporting by Mike Wall, Senior Writer

Endangered species

To date, the Trump administration has had little interaction with the Endangered Species Act (ESA). But, its actions to roll back environmental regulations and protections on federal lands put greater pressure on wildlife that are already susceptible to decline, experts say. And proposed budget cuts to the Department of the Interior — a reduction of about 12 percent — would hamper the ESA's ability to protect listed species and to identify species that are in trouble, conservationists told Live Science.

The ESA was signed into law in 1973, and exists to safeguard vulnerable species and ecosystems — on land, in the oceans and in freshwater habitats. A species can be designated under the ESA as "endangered," at risk of extinction in all or part of its range, or "threatened," meaning under threat of becoming endangered. Once a species is listed, it is illegal for it to be hunted, harassed or harmed in any way, and additional protections extend to preserve its habitats from destruction, according to a summary published online by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) 

Trump has yet to appoint a new director for the FWS — the organization that holds most of the responsibility for managing the ESA. And the president's vocal support of fossil fuel extraction and his dismissal of climate science do not bode well for endangered and threatened species, said Bob Dreher, senior vice president for Conservation Programs at Defenders of Wildlife, a nonprofit conservation organization based in Washington, D.C.

"We have reasons for very deep concern about whether this administration will fulfill their responsibilities for protection of imperiled wildlife and sound management of federal public lands," Dreher, who gave Trump an "incomplete" grade on the issue, told Live Science in an email.

The Trump administration clashed with the ESA in February, when it delayed the endangered classification of a bumblebee species. The rusty patched bumblebee (Bombus affinis) — which declined by 87 percent over the past 20 years — was listed as endangered in President Barack Obama's last days in office, and protections were to go into effect Feb. 10. However, the Trump administration called for further review of the bee's status in response to objections from industrial and agricultural groups, Time reported.

This challenge to a classification that had already been meticulously reviewed and approved was "completely illegal," Rebecca Riley, a senior attorney for the Land and Wildlife Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), told Live Science. The NRDC swiftly countered by filing a lawsuit.  

"The Obama administration made the decision to protect the species based on extensive science — there was no basis on which to reverse it," said Riley, who stated that Trump deserves an "F" on the issue of protecting endangered species.

The bees received their endangered status March 21, but other actions on the part of the Trump administration are raising additional red flags for conservation groups. Trump's call to eliminate the 2015 Clean Water Rule, which defines federal oversight for small bodies of water in order to regulate pollution, could dramatically impact numerous freshwater species, Collin O'Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, told Live Science.

"One-third of all freshwater fish and two-thirds of all bivalves — mussels and oysters — are at risk of potential extinction in the coming decade. When you walk back from a rule that's going to improve water quality and stream health, you're making it that much harder for those species to recover," O'Mara said.

Trump also issued an executive order overturning an Obama-era ban on lead ammunition and tackle in national wildlife refuges, despite ample evidence that their use leaves behind toxic residue that can harm predators and scavengers, said Noah Greenwald, director of the Endangered Species Program at the Center for Biological Diversity. Bald eagles, in particular, are especially prone to lead poisoning, Greenwald told Live Science.

Another Obama-era ruling that Trump overturned during his first 100 days banned certain practices for hunting large predators — such as wolves and bears — on federal lands in Alaska. Evidence shows that killing top predators carries negative consequences for entire ecosystems and affects multiple species, yet Congress and the Trump administration proceeded with their reversal, said Greenwald, who gave Trump an "F" on the issue.

"It's clear they're not prioritizing the issue — if anything, they're hostile to wildlife and endangered species," Greenwald said.

It remains to be seen whether the coming months will bring new efforts on the part of the Trump administration to follow up on campaign rhetoric praising the preservation of public lands. But, their actions thus far offer little hope that the welfare of endangered species will rank high on their list, experts say.

"At this time the jury's still out," O'Mara, who gave Trump an "incomplete" grade, told Live Science. "But there have not been many positive actions yet that would help the recovery of thousands of species that are in trouble right now." 

—Reporting by Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer

Women's health

The Trump administration has made a number of policy changes that could have a harmful impact on women's health, according to experts.

"President Trump's first 100 days can be described as an all-out assault on women's health and reproductive rights," said Jamila K. Taylor, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a progressive policy institute.

One of Trump's first executive orders was to reinstate the Global Gag Rule, a policy that bans federal funding to international organizations if they offer abortion-related services or information, even if those organizations use private funds, Taylor told Live Science. Every Republican president since Ronald Regan has reinstated the ban, but under the Trump administration, the ban goes farther than before because it now applies to all U.S. global health funding, whereas in the past, it applied just to family planning funding.

"Research has shown that the Global Gag Rule places undue burden on U.S.-funded health care providers and women seeking their services," Taylor said.  According to Population Action International, a research and advocacy group that works to improve access to reproductive health care, the policy has, in the past, led to clinic closures and reduced services by international family planning providers, and decreased supplies of contraceptives.

"Cutting funds to providers working on the front lines of hard-to-reach communities has led to entire health care networks collapsing, the most vulnerable women having to go without access to life-saving services, and the denial of women's fundamental human rights," said Taylor, who gave Trump an "F" for women's health issues in his first 100 days in office.

Trump also recently signed a bill that allows states to stop "Title X" funding for Planned Parenthood and other agencies that offer abortions. Providers that use Title X funds serve about 4 million people with preventive health care each year, Taylor said.

Trump's replacement to the Affordable Care Act could also restrict private insurance coverage of abortions, prevent Medicaid enrollees from having access to Planned Parenthood and get rid of maternity care health benefits, Taylor said.

Jill Horwitz, a professor of law and a health policy expert at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, also gave the Trump administration a failing grade on this issue, citing the proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act. The proposed reforms "have disregarded the health of women," Horwitz said. "For example, the second reform proposal would eliminate essential health benefits, including maternity care. This disregard is not only a problem for health care but the financial stability of women and their families."

—Reporting by Rachael Rettner, Senior Writer

Oil

One of the top issues being taken on by the Trump administration is energy — specifically energy security, according to the White House website. The president's "America First Energy Plan" outlines the elimination of clean energy policies established under President Obama's administration, and highlights investments in fossil fuels (oil, natural gas and coal).

Though the plan itself is vague in what actions the administration will take, the first 100 days of Trump's presidency have already seen a revival of domestic oil projects. Most notably, the president signed executive orders just days after his inauguration to advance construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline projects.

The proposed Dakota Access Pipeline would travel 1,172 miles (1,886 kilometers) through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois, to transport up to 570,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The project was stalled in December 2016 due to concerns of its environmental impact and potential contamination of water supplies along the pipeline's route, which includes passing through sacred land of the Native American tribe Standing Rock Sioux.

The Keystone XL pipeline would transport about 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil (a mixture of clay, sand, water and thick, black oil) per day from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, extending 1,179 miles (1,897 km). Obama halted construction of the pipeline in 2015, saying the Keystone pipeline would reinforce reliance on fossil fuels.

The Keystone XL pipeline would also have a dire impact on climate change, according to climate scientist Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, who gave Trump a "D" on the issue.

"[Keystone would] unleash huge amounts of the dirtiest, most carbon-costly oil into the global marketplace at a time when we need to leave the vast majority of oil reserves in the ground if we're going to avoid dangerous and irreversible climate change," Mann told Live Science.

In fact, the [Keystone] XL pipeline project could release greenhouse gases every year that would equal the annual output of 5.7 million cars on the road, according to a 2015 report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Trump's oil-friendly policies could also damage ongoing efforts to reduce demand for oil, according to Jeremy Martin, a senior scientist and fuels lead for the Clean Vehicles Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"By focusing on only half the equation, his strategies miss the bigger opportunities to cut oil use and are doomed to fail," Martin, who said Trump deserves an "F" on the issue, told Live Science. "He's pushed for more pipelines without fully analyzing the impacts on the communities they'd run through and the alternatives … ignoring the fact that oil is the largest source of [carbon dioxide] emissions responsible for climate change." 

An energy strategy that targets reducing fossil fuel consumption and focuses on clean technology would be more effective, Martin said.

—Reporting by Kacey Deamer, Staff Writer

Editor's note: As of August 4, 2022, the constitutional right to abortion has been eliminated in the U.S., following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. The following article was published on Dec 15, 2016, and therefore any legal information is no longer accurate. 

If women choose to have an abortion, those who are allowed to obtain one may have better mental health outcomes than those who are denied one, according to a new study.

The results of the study cast doubt on the idea that women experience mental health problems due to having an abortion, the researchers said. This idea has been used as a basis for laws in some states that require women to undergo counseling about the supposed negative psychological outcomes from having an abortion before these women obtain such an procedure, the researchers said.

The new results show that denying women an abortion may have more negative effects on their mental health than allowing women to get the abortion, said lead study author M. Antonia Biggs, a researcher of reproductive health at the University of California, San Francisco. [5 Controversial Mental Health Treatments]

The findings also suggest that doctors should provide women who are considering an abortion with the most accurate scientific information to help them make decisions related to their pregnancies, the researchers said.

In the study, the researchers looked at the psychological outcomes in 956 women over five years. These women either underwent an abortion that they wanted or were denied one because their pregnancy was up to three weeks past the time limit on abortions at their clinic. The former group included 273 women who underwent abortions in the first trimester of their pregnancies and 452 women who underwent abortions when their pregnancies were within two weeks under the limit mandated by their clinics.

The researchers interviewed the women to see if having an abortion or being denied the procedure affected the women's mental health. The investigators first interviewed the women about a week after the women either had an abortion or were denied one, and then interviewed them again every six months for five years. During the interviews, the researchers asked the women questions about their demographics, physical and mental health, and history of traumatic life events.

The researchers found that the women who had been denied an abortion had more anxiety symptoms, lower self-esteem and lower levels of life satisfaction during the initial rounds of interviews than those who had undergone abortions, including among those women who were near the limit of when their clinic agreed to perform abortions. [7 Ways Depression Differs in Men and Women]

However, the increased anxiety, lowered self-esteem and decreased life satisfaction in those women who were denied abortion did improve over time. By six months to one year after the start of the study, those measures reached levels that were on average similar to those in women who did have an abortion, the researchers said. This improvement was particularly pronounced in women who eventually miscarried or had an abortion at another facility, the researchers found.

The initial increase in negative psychological symptoms in women who were denied an abortion likely shows the women's reactions to being denied, the researchers said.

Moreover, the researchers found that during the first rounds of interviews in the study, many of these women said they were still trying to obtain an abortion at another facility. The additional stress from having to find and travel to another abortion facility and raise money to pay for the extra travel and the procedure itself may have also contributed to the women's psychological symptoms, said the study, published today (Dec. 14) in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

This article was updated on August 4, 2022 by Live Science contributor Alice Ball following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Editor's note: As of August 5, 2022, the constitutional right to abortion has been eliminated in the U.S., following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. The following article was published on Oct 20, 2016, and therefore any legal information is longer accurate. 

At last night's presidential debate, Donald Trump said abortions could happen "on the final day" of a pregnancy if Hillary Clinton becomes president, but experts say this is very unlikely and does not accurately reflect the reality of abortions in the United States.

During the debate, Trump said Clinton's position on late-term abortions would mean "you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day."

However, an abortion so late in pregnancy is "incredibly unlikely," said Elizabeth Nash, the senior state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research organization. "That just isn't the experience around abortion that women have" in the United States, Nash said. [5 Myths About Women's Bodies]

In fact, the vast majority of U.S. abortions occur early in pregnancy. In 2012, 91 percent of abortions in the U.S. took place in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, while just 1.3 percent occurred at 21 weeks or later, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

What's more, an abortion late in pregnancy is often difficult to obtain, Nash said. Most states have laws that place restrictions on abortions at some point in pregnancy — for example, many states ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and others ban abortions after a fetus is viable (meaning it could survive outside the womb), which is often defined as either week 22 or week 24 of pregnancy.

After the specified time point, the only way for a woman to obtain an abortion in many states is if the pregnancy threatens her health or life.

There are "very limited circumstances where a woman would be able to obtain an abortion" after the time point specified by state laws, Nash said.

Because abortions after 21 weeks are not common, there is little data on the reasons behind these abortions, Nash said. But women may seek late-term abortions for a variety of reasons, including that they had difficulty accessing abortion services, which created a delay, Nash said. For example, a woman may have difficulty making an appointment or traveling to an appointment if there are no abortion services in her town, she said.

Women may also need to delay an abortion in order to save up the money to pay for the procedure, which can cost around $500 for early abortions and $1,500 for late-term abortions, according to Planned Parenthood. Some states also impose waiting periods before a woman can have an abortion, or require parental consent for an abortion if the woman is a minor, which creates further delays, Planned Parenthood says.

A woman may also require a late-term abortion if her health or life is threatened by continuing her pregnancy, according to Planned Parenthood. Conditions that could lead to a late-term abortion include infections, heart failure, uncontrolled diabetes, serious kidney disease and severe depression, according to Planned Parenthood.

Problems with the health of the fetus, including severe birth defects, can also lead to late-term abortions. "After 24 weeks, birth defects that lead to abortion are very severe and typically considered incompatible with life," Dr. Jen Gunter, an obstetrician and gynecologist based in San Francisco, wrote on her blog after last night's debate. ("Incompatible with life" means the baby would not survive after birth.)

In these circumstances, practitioners can either induce labor (which means the baby is delivered, and may die from the birth defects shortly afterward) or perform a modified abortion. Oftentimes, when a late-term abortion is performed for serious birth defects, it is because inducing labor would be hazardous for the woman, Gunter wrote.

The further along a woman is in her pregnancy, the more likely a doctor is to induce labor, rather than perform an abortion, but some practitioners may be able to perform an abortion up to 34 weeks, Gunter said.

But at 38 to 39 weeks of pregnancy, if it's clear that the fetus will not survive long after birth, a modified abortion is no longer an option. A health care provider induces labor, and this "is simply called a delivery," Gunter said.

Original article on Live Science.

This article was updated on August 5, 2022 by Live Science contributor Alice Ball following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

The Supreme Court has overturned parts of a Texas law that would have caused many abortion clinics in the state to close down.

In a 5-3 decision, the court said that parts of law, which imposed a number of restrictions on abortion clinics, were unconstitutional.

Here are some important facts about the ruling:

What did the Texas law require clinics to do?

The law, called House Bill 2, said that doctors who perform abortions need to be listed as staff members at a nearby hospital (less than 30 miles, or 48 kilometers, away from the abortion clinic), so that they could directly admit patients to the hospital if necessary (referred to as having "admitting privileges"). The law also said that abortion clinics need to meet certain standards that are required for hospital surgery centers, such as having rooms or hallways of a certain size. This would have required most clinics to do expensive renovations. [8 Supreme Court Decisions that Changed US Families]

What did the Supreme Court decide?

The court ruled that these new requirements did not offer medical benefits to patients that were "sufficient to justify the burdens upon access [to abortion] that each [requirement] imposes," Justice Stephen G. Breyer, wrote in the court's majority opinion. Rather, the restrictions place "a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a previability abortion," and therefore constitute an "undue burden" on women's access to abortions, Breyer wrote. ("Previability" means before a fetus can survive outside the uterus.) In doing this, the requirements violate the Federal Constitution, he said.

The court said there is no evidence that requiring a doctor to have admitting privileges at a hospital would improve women's treatment compared to the prior law, which required that doctors performing abortions make arrangements with hospital staff who could admit patients if needed. The court also said that the surgical center requirements were "generally unnecessary" in an abortion clinic, and noted that most complications from abortions occur after patients have left the centers.

What does this mean for women?

The ruling means that abortion clinics in Texas that would have been forced under the law to shut down will now be allowed to remain open. Before House Bill 2 went into effect, there were more than 40 abortion clinics in Texas, but this number was cut in half, to about 20 clinics, when the admitting privileges requirement was enforced. The number of abortion clinics was expected to drop further, to just seven or eight clinics, when the surgical center requirements were enforced. This would have significantly increased the number of women living more than 50 miles (80.5 km) away from an abortion clinic, raising the number from 800,000 to 2 million, the court's majority opinion stated.

Women's health advocates applauded the Supreme Court decision. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) said in a statement that the ruling "will help to protect women’s access to abortion care in Texas and across the country." An earlier statement from the organization said, "by making it harder for women to get the care that they need, laws like Texas' ultimately jeopardize safety, and are attacks on women's health."

A statement from Physicians for Reproductive Health, an organization that works to increase access to reproductive care, said that the ruling "affirms that a woman's right to dignified and compassionate abortion care should not depend on where she lives or on the interference of politicians."

How safe is abortion?

Abortion is "one of the safest medical procedures performed in the United States," ACOG has said. Studies show that less than 1 percent of U.S. women who have an abortion will experience a major complication, which is one that requires admission to a hospital.

In a 2015 study of more than 54,000 abortions in California, 0.87 percent of patients required an emergency department visit for an abortion-related complication, and most of these complications were minor.

What happens next?

In addition to the abortion clinics that will now remain open, the ruling could also mean that some clinics that have closed will now reopen. But this change won't be immediate. "Clinics don’t reopen overnight," Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman's Health, a lead plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. For example, clinics first have to renew leases and hire staff, Miller said.

The ruling also means that similar restrictions on abortion clinics in other states are likely unconstitutional, The New York Times said. Missouri, North Dakota and Tennessee have "admitting privileges" requirements for abortion clinic doctors, and Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Virginia have surgical center standards for abortion clinics, according to the Associated Press.

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's note: As of August 3, 2022, Utah has begun to enforce its 18 week ban on abortion and attempted to enforce its trigger ban to prohibit abortion entirely. This is following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, thus eliminating the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. The following article was published on May 17, 2016, and therefore the legal information is no longer accurate. 

Utah recently passed a law that requires doctors to give anesthesia to a fetus prior to performing an abortion that occurs at 20 weeks of gestation or later.

The law assumes that a fetus may be able to feel pain at that stage in development; however, doctors groups and other critics of the law argue that a fetus cannot feel pain at 20 weeks gestational age.

Indeed, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) said it considers the case to be closed as to whether a fetus can feel pain at that stage in development. [6 Myths About Miscarriage]

"The science shows that based on gestational age, the fetus is not capable of feeling pain until the third trimester," said Kate Connors, a spokesperson for ACOG. The third trimester begins at about 27 weeks of pregnancy.

To find out more, Live Science dug into the research and spoke with a leading expert on fetal pain. Here's a look at what we found.

The problem with pain

One reason the question of fetal pain is so controversial is because pain is always a subjective experience, said Dr. Anne Davis, an OB/GYN and the consulting medical director for Physicians for Reproductive Health. Davis is an abortion provider.

Unlike with blood pressure or body temperature, for example, there's no definitive way to measure pain, Davis said. People do have ways of communicating how much pain they're feeling; for example, doctors often ask people to rate their pain on a scale of 1 to 10. But the experience of pain is fundamentally subjective, Davis said. In other words, what might be very painful to one person may cause very little pain to someone else.

Still, even though doctors can't objectively measure pain, research has revealed much about how pain is experienced in the body and, more importantly, in the brain.

"Pain occurs in [the] brain," Davis said. When a person is injured — say, you stub your toe, for example — a signal travels from the foot up through the nerves in the leg to the spinal cord, and then from spinal cord up to the brain, Davis said. Once that signal gets into the brain, the information is transmitted through a complex web of neurons to an area of the brain called the cortex, she said.

It's in this sophisticated part of the brain that a person actually perceives the feeling of pain, Davis said.

"We know that there are a lot of steps in between the thing that could cause pain and the actual experience of pain," Davis said. For the system to work — whether in an adult or a fetus — all of the pathways of the nerves need to be connected and functioning, she said.

Fetal development

"What we can say about the fetal nervous system is that based on the best science we have" on the neurons that carry pain signals is that the "system isn't developed until the third trimester of pregnancy," Davis told Live Science. 

Scientists' knowledge of the fetal nervous system was summed up in a 2005 review in the journal JAMA. The authors of that review outlined in detail the evidence on how this system develops, based on a number of previous studies on the anatomy of the fetus at various stages of development.

Davis, who was not involved with that review, noted that though it was published in 2005, the research is still valid, because the scientific community's understanding of fetal development is "pretty much stable." Indeed, since the publication of the review, "no research has contradicted its findings," said a recent statement from ACOG.

In the review, the researchers highlighted several key points in fetal development that are required in order for a fetus to perceive pain. One is that the receptors in the skin that sense an injury must be developed. Research has shown that this happens between 7.5 and 15 weeks of pregnancy, depending on the location of the receptors on the body, according to the review. For example, receptors in the skin around the mouth develop at around 7.5 weeks, whereas receptors in the skin on the abdomen develop at around 15 weeks, according to the review.

Second, the neurons in the spinal cord that transmit that signal up to the brain must be developed. Researchers who looked at fetal tissues reported that this happens at around 19 weeks, the review said.

Third, the neurons that extend from the spinal cord into the brain need to reach all the way to the area of the brain where pain is perceived. This does not occur until between 23 and 24 weeks, according to the review.

Moreover, the nerves' existence isn't enough to produce the experience of pain, the authors wrote in their review. Rather, "These anatomical structures must also be functional," the authors wrote. It's not until around 30 weeks that there is evidence of brain activity that suggests the fetus is "awake."

Davis noted that while these time frames aren't exact — some fetuses may develop a little earlier, and some fetuses may develop a little later — "there isn't any science to suggest that those pathways [for pain] are complete around the 20th week" of pregnancy. 

"It's a complicated development process, and it goes in stages," Davis said.

According to a statement from ACOG, a fetus's brain and nervous system "do not have the capacity to process, recognize or feel pain during the second trimester."

Indeed, it's important to remember that early on in pregnancy, the fetus isn't just a very small version of what it looks like later in pregnancy, Davis said. Rather, things are changing and organs are forming, she said. There are number of fetal conditions that can't be diagnosed until later in pregnancy, because the development simply hasn't happened yet, she said.

Reflexes and stress responses

One argument that is sometimes used to suggest a fetus can experience pain before the third trimester is that a fetus can have a withdrawal reflex, or the ability to move away from something when touched.

But performing a reflex action and perceiving pain are two different things, Davis said. Consider, for example, when a doctor tests your reflexes by hitting your knee with a rubber hammer. Your foot will kick out, regardless of whether you experience pain or not.

"Many reflexes occur at the level of the spinal cord," and don't involve the brain at all, Davis said. But the brain is essential for perceiving pain, she said.  [5 Painful Facts you Need to Know]

Another argument is that a fetus in the second trimester can display certain stress responses, such as increased levels of stress hormones, including cortisol and endorphins. However, the authors of the JAMA review noted that these hormones aren't specific to pain (for example, other stressful conditions may affect their levels). In addition, the hormones are not regulated by the part of the brain associated with consciousness, the authors wrote.

Doctors react

Utah's law requiring anesthetizing a fetus prior to an abortion also brings up important technical questions: How should doctors perform such a procedure? Is there an added risk to the woman? For example, although it's been shown that painkilling drugs cross the placenta and reach the fetal bloodstream, doctors don't know how much of the drug they would have to give the woman in order to achieve the desired level in the fetus, and if this amount is safe for the woman, the JAMA authors wrote.

There's no protocol for how to do this, Davis said, and experts in the field of maternal medicine aren't sure how to follow this law. Doctors are able to immobilize a fetus to perform certain in-utero surgeries, but this is different than blocking pain in the fetus, according to the JAMA review.

Dr. Leah Torres, an OB/GYN in Salt Lake City, also said that it's not medically possible for doctors to follow this law.

"There is no medical practice that involves administering [pain relief] to a fetus," she told The Salt Lake City Tribune earlier this month.

Yet another issue is that pain is a part of many medical procedures. And so, fundamentally, the law begs another important question: Why does the potential existence of pain mean that a procedure should be avoided? Davis said.

Follow Sara G. Miller on Twitter @saragmiller. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.

This article was updated on August 3, 2022 by Live Science contributor Alice Ball following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Editor's note: As of August 4, 2022, the constitutional right to abortion has been eliminated in the U.S, following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. The following article was published on March 30, 2016, and therefore any legal information regarding abortion laws in Ohio, Texas and North Dakota is no longer accurate.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved changes to the label for mifepristone, also known as "the abortion pill," the agency said this week.

The new label says that the drug (sold under the brand name Mifeprex) can be taken later in pregnancy and at a lower dose than what was recommended on the old label. Many doctors already follow the new regimen in what's known as "off-label" use, because recent studies have shown that this regimen is safer and more effective than the protocol on the old label. But a few states, including Ohio, Texas and North Dakota, had laws that required doctors to follow the regimen on the label exactly.

"These laws compelled health care providers to use an outdated, inferior and less effective regimen," Planned Parenthood said in a statement, weighing in on the FDA's new rule. "The FDA's approval of the new Mifeprex label means that medication abortion [using drugs to end a pregnancy] can once again be provided everywhere in the U.S. in accordance with what research shows is safest and most effective," the statement said. [11 Big Fat Pregnancy Myths]

Here are the facts about mifepristone:

What is mifepristone?

Mifepristone is a medication used to induce abortion. It's taken in combination with another drug, called misoprostol, to end a pregnancy early on. The drug combination is an alternative to the surgical abortion procedure performed in a clinic, called an aspiration abortion..

How does it work?

Mifepristone blocks the action of the hormone progesterone, which is important to maintain a pregnancy. Blocking progesterone causes the lining of the uterus to break down, and ends the pregnancy, according to Planned Parenthood.

What changes did the FDA make to the mifepristone label?

The old label said that mifepristone could be taken up to 49 days after a woman's last menstrual period, but the new label says that the drug can also be taken later in pregnancy: up to 70 days after a woman's last period. The new label also lowers the dose of the medication, from 600 milligrams to 200 mg. This regimen reduces the side effects, and also the cost, of a medication abortion, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Finally, the new label reduces the number of appointments that a woman needs for a medication abortion from three to two. The old label said that in addition to the initial appointment needed to get a prescription for the medication, women needed to return to the doctor three days after taking mifepristone, and again 14 days after taking the drug. But the new label eliminates the appointment after three days, and says that a woman should return for follow-up with her health care provider seven to 14 days after taking the medication.

Is mifepristone the same as the morning-after pill?

No, the morning-after pill, also called emergency contraception, is taken to prevent pregnancy from occurring a short time after unprotected sex; it does not affect an established pregnancy.

What are the risks?

Common side effects of a medication abortion include nausea, weakness, fever/chills, vomiting, headache, diarrhea and dizziness, according to the FDA. Serious side effects are rare, but can include infection and hemorrhage; these occur in less than 0.5 percent of people who take the medication, the FDA said.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. FollowLive Science @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science.

This article was updated on August 4, 2022 by Live Science contributor Alice Ball following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

This week, when Pope Francis visits the United States for the first time, he will see a Catholic population that mirrors the country overall.

Catholics make up the single largest religious group in the United States, with 22 percent of U.S. residents identifying as Catholic and nearly half of Americans saying they have at least some connection to Catholicism, according to new research.

This huge umbrella category encompasses Americans of almost every ethnicity, creed, socioeconomic status and political stripe. Given the huge number of people who identify as Catholic in this country, an overarching picture of their politics and beliefs is hard to pinpoint, said Daniel Cox, the director of researcher at the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), a nonprofit organization that researches the intersection of religion and public life.

"The Catholic vote is the most important vote, and also, there is no Catholic vote," Cox said. [Infographic: The Catholics of the United States]

Strong identity

Of those Americans who identify as Catholic, about four in 10 say they go to Mass at least once a week, while about 16 percent say they rarely or never attend Mass, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in June.

About one in 10 people say they are culturally Catholic even though they may attend different religious services or not believe in God at all. Many of these cultural Catholics were raised in the church and consider it part of their heritage through ancestry, family traditions or some other aspect of culture, the survey found.

By and large, the Catholic faith inspires a sense of strong loyalty: 70 percent of those who identify their current religion as Catholic say they could never imagine leaving their faith, the Pew survey found.

However, almost half of the people who are raised in the church do leave it at some point in their lives, with a fifth of those becoming "reverts," meaning they returned to Catholicism, the Pew survey found. In total, about 15 percent of Americans consider themselves former Catholics, according to an August 2015 telephone survey conducted by PRRI.

It's not clear why Catholics abandon their religious affiliation, but disagreement over social issues could be a factor, Cox said.

"I think Catholics are actually leaving the church over the issue of same-sex marriage and treatment of gay and lesbian people," Cox told Live Science. "The fact that the Church was so active in promoting opposition to same-sex marriage at a time when the public — in particular young people — were voicing strong support, I think it hurt the Church and it is continuing to be weighing them down in trying to get millennials really involved."

The picture of Catholics in America has also changed over the decades. For instance, 79 percent of Catholics over age 65 are white non-Hispanics. But only 40 percent of those Catholics between ages 18 and 29 are white, with almost half of this group identifying as Hispanic, the PRRI survey found.

Sexuality, family and social teaching

Though Catholics may feel a strong connection to their faith, many disagree with church teaching when it comes to sex, marriage and family life. For instance, only 17 percent of Catholics view contraception as a sin. By contrast, the Catholic Church teaches that sex has two primary functions: procreation and the unity of a couple, and to deliberately sever the connection between sex and procreation is intrinsically immoral.

Other Catholic no-no's, such as living together before marriage and remarrying after divorce, are also accepted by most Catholics, the survey found. About a quarter of Catholics have been divorced, and one in 10 have remarried. The Catholic Church views remarriages as living in adultery unless the church has annulled the previous marriage, meaning it was invalid in the first place.

People often reconcile their views with church teachings by placing less weight on doctrine that they disagree with, Cox said.

"People are both Catholics, but they're also mothers and fathers. They might be police officers and lawyers," Cox told Live Science. "You see that in a lot of issues — personal experience or personal necessity may supersede church teaching."

In addition, Catholics are evenly split on whether the church should accept same-sex marriages, the Pew survey found. Because the church views procreation as one of the inherent purposes of marriage, unions between couples who can never naturally conceive as a couple are not considered marriage by the Catholic Church. "Homosexual acts" are considered "intrinsically disordered," according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. About 4 percent of people who consider themselves Catholic also identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, according to a 2014 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. [Same-Sex Marriage: 6 Effects of Supreme Court Decision]

In PRRI's research poll, a majority of Catholics said they supported same-sex marriage: 58 percent either favored or strongly favored the institution, compared with 54 percent of the general public.

Catholics also tend to mirror the general population on the issue of abortion, with about 49 percent saying that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 45 percent of the general public who thought the same, the PRRI survey found. The Church views abortion as the deliberate taking of an innocent human life, which is a mortal sin that can lead to ex-communication.

Social justice and environment

In general, Catholics tend to agree with the Pope and the church's teachings on social justice and care for the poor. About 60 percent of Catholics say working to help the poor is an essential part of Catholicism, the Pew survey found. [Infographic: The World's Catholic Population]

Climate change, however, doesn't inspire the same fervor in Catholics. Only 23 percent consider it a sin to use energy when it's not needed (presumably things like leaving the lights no when not needed or driving gas-guzzling cars), and only 29 percent consider working to address climate change a central mission of the church, according to the Pew survey. (The survey was conducted prior to the Pope's climate change encyclical, "Laudato Si," which states that climate change is a global problem with grave implications, and that many scientific studies suggest human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are the primary culprit in warming, so it's possible Catholic opinion has shifted since then, the study authors acknowledge.)

Catholics also tend to be slightly less supportive of the death penalty than the general public; 54 percent of Catholics prefer life in prison without parole as the appropriate punishment for murder, with just 40 percent preferring the death penalty. In contrast, about 44 percent of the general population view the death penalty as the preferred punishment for murderers, with 48 percent preferring life in prison, according to a 2014 American Values Survey conducted by PRRI. The church considers the death penalty justified only if it is the only possible way to defend human lives against an unjust aggressor. [Mistaken Identity? 10 Contested Death Penalty Cases]

Big divides on the small scale

Though Catholics tend to mirror the country as a whole, drill down deeper and there are big differences among certain populations of the faithful.

"For some Catholics, what's essential to Catholic teaching is helping the poor and the underserved and really being generous and trying to make a difference through social acts and acts of charity," Cox said. "For others, it might be the ethos of [being] pro-life: the idea that every life is sacred."

For instance, people who attend Mass regularly tend to hew closer to the Church's teachings on social issues. Only 34 percent of Catholics who attend Mass weekly say that same-sex couples raising children is as good as any other arrangement, according to the Pew research. And nearly six in 10 Catholics who attend Mass at least weekly say homosexual behavior is a sin, compared with slightly more than a third who attend less regularly, according to the Pew survey.

And when it comes to climate change, 61 percent of Hispanics say they believe humans have caused the Earth's warming, compared with just 40 percent of white Catholics. Hispanics are also much more likely to oppose the death penalty; just 29 percent prefer the death penalty, compared with 45 percent of white Catholics who see death as the preferred punishment for convicted murderers, the 2014 PRRI survey found.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Planned Parenthood denies recent allegations that the organization profits from fetal tissue donation. But what exactly is fetal tissue used for in medical research, and what are the ethical issues surrounding its use?  

This week, an activist group called the Center for Medical Progress posted a video that shows a Planned Parenthood doctor discussing the use of fetal tissue from aborted fetuses with actors posing as employees of a tissue procurement company. 

In the video, the doctor, Deborah Nucatola, the senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood, says the price for fetal tissue ranges from $30 to $100, or enough to cover related expenses, such as the cost of transporting the tissue. In the video, Nucatola says that tissue donation does not have "any revenue stream."

"The allegation that Planned Parenthood profits in any way from tissue donation is not true. Our donation programs, like any other high-quality health care providers, follow all laws and ethical guidelines," Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, said in the video.

In the early 1990s, a lot of work was done to see if the stem cells in fetal tissue could be used to replace tissues damaged by diseases, such as Parkinson's disease and diabetes, said Arthur Caplan, director of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center. But most of these studies found that fetal tissue did not work the way researchers had hoped — it was often rejected by the body, or grew like a tumor, Caplan said. Many researchers who had pursued studies in fetal tissue moved to embryonic stem cells when researchers developed techniques to isolate and grow these stem cells in the late 1990s, he said. [5 Discoveries in Stem Cell Science]

Fetal cells were also used in the development of some vaccines, including the rubella, varicella and polio vaccine.

Today, most researchers who use fetal tissue are interested in studying fetal development, fetal abnormalities and diseases of the fetus, or how toxins may affect the fetus, Caplan said.

"There's been a decrease in the interest in using fetus tissue in many areas of science," because it was replaced by stem cells, Caplan said. "The need or the demand for fetal tissue is a lot less than people thought it was going to be."

Some people object to donations of fetal tissue, which typically come from aborted fetuses, because they believe abortion is wrong, and don't think anything "good," should come out of the practice, Caplan said.

Another ethical concern is whether doctors might modify the abortion procedure in order to up the chances of obtaining usable fetal tissue, such as changing the position of the fetus or using different equipment. "You don’t want to change anything to optimize your chance of obtaining tissue," Caplan said. "You don't want the woman worrying that you're not treating them the way that would be best."

A troubling part of the Center for Medical Progress video "was there was a suggestion that they might be altering what they're doing [when aborting a fetus]," Caplan said.

In the video, Nucatola says: "There are little changes they can make in their technique to increase your success."

One actor replies: "Even though they have a set way that they do it, they're open to changes?" Nucatola says of the process used to remove the fetus from a woman. "If they're reasonable people, sure."

Caplan said that, in order for fetal tissue donation to be ethical, the procedure should not be changed, and there shouldn't be any compensation for the tissue other than to cover handling costs like storing and transporting the tissue.

An unanswered question is how many centers should be doing fetal tissue donation, Caplan said. It may be better to have a few places that specialize in this type of tissue donation, he said.

Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. FollowLive Science @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Women who have undergone a common gynecological surgical procedure who later become pregnant may be at increased risk of giving birth before the baby reaches full term, new research suggests.

The procedure, known as dilatation and curettage (commonly called a D&C), is performed on women who have had either a miscarriage or an abortion. The new study shows that the procedure may increase women's risk of preterm birth because it may damage the cervix. This opening at the bottom of the uterus normally stays closed during pregnancy but opens during labor.

The new findings "warrant caution in the use of D&C after miscarriage and induced abortion," said study co-author Dr. Pim Ankum of the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The findings were presented on Tuesday (June 16) at the Annual Meeting of European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Lisbon, Portugal. [7 Baby Myths Debunked]

Common procedure

D&C is one of the most common surgical procedures performed for abortion and miscarriage. During the 15-minute procedure, doctors dilate, or open, the cervix, then scrape the uterine wall using either a metal implement called a curette or a vacuum suction tube. The procedure is considered very safe, with just a few, extremely rare serious side effects such as heavy bleeding, infection and puncturing of the uterine wall. Rarely, D&Cs can also cause bands of scar tissue, called adhesions, to form in the uterus, making it difficult to conceive later on, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

To understand more about the risks of D&Cs, Ankum and his colleagues analyzed 21 previously published studies that included a total of more than 2 million women.

The researchers found that compared with women who had never had a D&C, women who had undergone the procedure prior to giving birth were 29 percent more likely to deliver their baby before the 37th week of pregnancy. (Pregnancies are generally considered to reach full term at 37 weeks.) Women who had not undergone a D&C had a 6 percent chance of having a preterm delivery, compared with 7.6 percent for those who had undergone the procedure, the researchers found.

The procedure also increased women's risk of very preterm births, or those occurring before 32 weeks of gestation, by 69 percent. The risks were higher for women who had multiple D&Cs.

There are other options besides undergoing a D&C for women who experience a miscarriage or have an abortion. Women may wait for the contents of the uterus to be expelled naturally, or may take a pill that speeds the clearing.

The researchers found that women who underwent D&C surgeries had an increased risk of preterm birth that was not seen in women who had previously experienced miscarriages but who chose to either take a pill or to wait for the remains of the miscarriage to clear from the body naturally.

But there are benefits to having a D&C rather than taking a pill or waiting for the contents of the uterus to be expelled naturally. The procedure may shorten the time involved to clear the uterus. Women may want to start trying to conceive another pregnancy as soon as possible, or may feel traumatized by the miscarriage and want to avoid the weeks of waiting that it can take for the uterus to clear completely. The pill used to clear a miscarriage from a woman's body, called misoprostol, is only safe and effective earlier in pregnancy, and doesn't always work, meaning women may have to have a D&C anyway.  

Cervical damage

It's not clear why the researchers found the association between D&C and preterm birth, but it's possible that the procedure may damage the cervix. This might later cause it to open before a pregnancy is full term, researchers speculated.

This could mean that other procedures that may damage the cervix, such as biopsy or cauterization, may also lead to preterm births. Another possibility is that damage to the cervix could allow the flourishing of genital tract infections, a known cause of preterm births, the researchers said.

The findings suggest that doctors should be more "restrained" in the use of dilatation, opting to use medicines such as misoprostol to induce miscarriage or to soften the cervix instead of dilatation prior to curettage, Ankum said.

Up to 25 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and in about 50 percent of miscarriages, women undergo a D&C, according to the American Pregnancy Association.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Americans living in politically liberal states and those living in conservative states have an equally low understanding of abortion's health effects and the laws regarding the procedure, a new national survey finds.

Just 74 out of the 569 people who took the survey answered at least four of the five questions about abortion correctly. The question that the greatest number people answered correctly was the one that asked whether it is legal to get an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy. In response, 7 percent of respondents incorrectly said "no," and another 11 percent were unsure. (Abortion during the first three months of pregnancy is legal in the United States.)

But only about a third of respondents knew that having an abortion in the first three months of pregnancy carries fewer health risks for women than giving birth, or that women who have abortions before 12 weeks of pregnancy do not face an increased risk of serious mental-health problems. [11 Big Fat Pregnancy Myths]

There were no differences in people's knowledge about abortion's health effects or abortion laws across liberal and conservative states, after the researchers took into account the respondents' individual characteristics, such as their political beliefs and whether they knew someone who had an abortion, the researchers said.

"Data does not support the red-versus-blue state hypothesis: Geography does not dictate the world views of Americans," lead researcher Danielle Bessett, a University of Cincinnati assistant professor of sociology, said in a statement. "Some individuals in all settings do have accurate information about abortion, regardless of political context."

The researchers also found that only 37 percent of respondents knew that women who have an abortion in the first three months of pregnancy are not more likely to have breast cancer than if they were to continue the pregnancy, and 35 percent knew that such women would not face a more difficult time becoming pregnant in the future.

When asked where they live, 53 percent of the participants reported living in a blue state, 26 percent in a red state and 20 percent in a swing state such as Ohio.

The respondents, ages 18 to 44, were randomly selected to take the online questionnaire. Fifty-three percent of the respondents were male. Thirty-eight percent of the participants said they were politically moderate, 37 percent identified as very or somewhat liberal and 25 percent reported they were somewhat or very conservative.

About one in three women in the U.S. has an abortion by age 45, the researchers said.

Twelve percent of respondents said they had a personal experience with abortion, and 65 percent reported that they knew someone who had an abortion.

The findings suggest that people in the U.S. are not well informed about the relative safety of abortion, or the laws surrounding it, the researchers said. More comprehensive and evidence-based resources could help educate the public about the health and legal issues concerning abortion, they said.

The study was presented today (Aug. 18) at the meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

The rates of teenage pregnancy, birth and abortion have plummeted in every state and among all racial and ethnic groups, a new report finds.

There were 614,000 pregnancies among 15- to 19-year-old women in the United States in 2010, or about 57 pregnancies per 1,000 women in that age group, according to a new study by the Guttmacher Institute. That's a 51 percent decline from the peak rate in 1990, and a 15 percent decline from the 2008 rate, when there were about 68 pregnancies per 1,000 women in that age group.

Among the states, New Mexico had the highest teen pregnancy rate, in 2010, with 80 pregnancies per 1,000 women in the age group, followed by Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. New Hampshire had the lowest rate, with 28 pregnancies per 1,000, followed by New Hampshire, Vermont, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Maine. [See List of State-by-State Teen Pregnancy Rankings]

The teen birth rate also declined noticeably, to 34.4 births per 1,000 teens, a 44 percent drop from its peak in 1991, when it was 61.8 births per 1,000. The teen abortion rate fell 66 percent, from 43.5 abortions per 1,000 in 1988 to 14.7 per 1,000 in 2010, according to the report.

Drop in pregnancies

Pregnancy remains more common among older teens than younger ones, with 69 percent of teen pregnancies occurring among 18- to 19-year-olds, according to the report. Older teens were more likely than younger ones to report having ever had sex, but a smaller percentage of those who are older and have sex become pregnant, likely due to increased and more effective contraceptive use, researchers said.

"The decline in the teen pregnancy rate is great news," study leader Kathryn Kost of the Guttmacher Institute said in a statement. "Other reports had already demonstrated sustained declines in births among teens in the past few years; but now we know that this is due to the fact that fewer teens are becoming pregnant in the first place," Kost added.

Disparities remain

Kost and her colleagues also found declines in teen pregnancy rates across all racial and ethnic groups and all 50 states. But racial and geographic disparities remain.

The teen pregnancy rate declined between 1990 and 2010 by more than 50 percent among white, black and Hispanic teens. However, pregnancy rates for black and Hispanic teens remain twice as high as the rate for white teens. In 2010, the rate among black teens was 99.5 pregnancies per 1,000 teens, the rate among Hispanic teens was 83.5 per 1,000 and the rate among white teens was 37.8 per 1,000.  

The variation among races and states likely results, in part, from differences in demographics, the availability of comprehensive sex education, the knowledge and availability of contraception, and cultural attitudes toward sex and early childbearing, the researchers said.

The full Guttmacher report, released today (May 5), is available online.

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

The rates of teenage pregnancy, birth and abortion have been declining in every U.S. state, and in all racial and ethnic groups, but disparities remain. Here are the rates of teen pregnancy in each state from 2010, from the highest (New Mexico) to the lowest (New Hampshire), according to the Guttmacher Institute.

[Read the full article on teen pregnancy trends]

1. New Mexico – 80/1,000

2. Mississippi – 76/1,000

3. Texas – 73/1,000

4. Arkansas – 73/1,000

5. Louisiana – 69/1,000

6. Oklahoma – 69/1,000

7. Nevada – 68/1,000

8. Delaware – 67/1,000

9. South Carolina – 65/1,000

10. Hawaii – 65/1,000

11. Georgia – 64/1,000

12. Alaska – 64/1,000

13. West Virginia – 64/1,000

14. New York – 63/1,000

15. Alabama – 62/1,000

16. Kentucky – 62/1,000

17. Tennessee – 62/1,000

18. Arizona – 60/1,000

19. Florida – 60/1,000

20. North Carolina – 59/1,000

21. California – 59/1,000

22. Maryland – 57/1,000

23. Illinois – 57/1,000

24. Wyoming – 56/1,000

25. Missouri – 54/1,000

26. Ohio – 54/1,000

27. Colorado – 54/1,000

28. Kansas – 53/1,000

29. Indiana – 53/1,000

30. Montana – 53/1,000

31. Michigan – 52/1,000

32. New Jersey – 51/1,000

33. Washington – 49/1,000

34. Pennsylvania – 49/1,000

35. Virginia – 48/1,000

36. Idaho – 47/1,000

37. Oregon – 47/1,000

38. South Dakota  – 47/1,000

39. Connecticut – 44/1,000

40. Rhode Island – 44/1,000

41. Iowa – 44/1,000

42. Nebraska – 43/1,000

43. North Dakota – 42/1,000

44. Wisconsin – 39/1,000

45. Utah – 38/1,000

47. Massachusetts – 37/1,000

48. Minnesota – 36/1,000

49. Vermont – 32/1,000

50. New Hampshire – 28/1,000

The researchers noted they did not include Washington D.C. with their ranking of U.S. states, because the District is more comparable to a city than to a state. The teen pregnancy rate in Washington D.C. is 90/1,000.

Political opposition is the main hurdle to developing birth control methods that could be more suitable than current options for many women, health experts said today (Sept. 23) in an editorial. The authors called on researchers to embrace and study birth control methods that act after sex, and can be taken only occasionally.

Current contraception methods are designed to work primarily by keeping sperm and eggs apart, but it is also possible to prevent pregnancy after an egg is fertilized.

Such post-fertilization birth control methods offer several advantages over existing contraceptives, among which is that they can be taken occasionally, for example, once a month, offering an alternative to women who experience difficulties with their current options.

"Although such methods would displease abortion opponents, they would likely be welcomed by many women," wrote the authors, a team of reproductive medicine and public health experts, in an editorial published today (Sept. 23) in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care.

As with any scientific endeavor there will likely be technical challenges to overcome in the making of a new birth control method, the researchers said. [7 Surprising Facts about the Pill]

There are promising compounds that may work, but all options need to be studied to know how far away researchers are from developing a reliable, post-fertilization contraceptive, said Dr. Elizabeth Raymond, professor of gynecology at New York University and one of the authors.

"The political problem has prevented us from even finding out what the scientific problems are," Raymond said.

Is it abortion?

The United States government defines pregnancy as beginning when a fertilized egg becomes implanted in the uterus. This implies that a birth control method that allows fertilization but prevents implantation should not be considered as abortion. However, not everyone is comfortable with this definition, the researchers said.

It is thought that some current forms of birth control sometimes act after fertilization, by disrupting the implementation of the embryo, although how this happens and how often it might occur are debated. Nonetheless, the possibility that birth control may work in this way is often not mentioned by experts out of concerns over opposition to contraception, the researchers said.

"We should openly acknowledge that some of the most effective standard contraceptive methods probably act, at least in part, after fertilization," they said.

Intrauterine devices and low-dose hormonal contraceptives could sometimes prevent an embryo from implanting in the uterus, Raymond said.

Other examples include chronic use of most hormonal contraceptives, and even breast-feeding, both of which are thought to impair implantation by altering the uterus lining and hormone levels.

"People don't like to talk about that, because it's a touchy subject, but it is actually true." Raymond said.

An option for some women

An after-sex birth control pill is not likely to be the option that works for every woman, Raymond said. But it could certainly be appealing to some.

The scope of problems women have with current contraception options is perhaps best captured by practitioners.

"Every day in clinical practice, at least one woman tells me she has discontinued use of hormonal contraception because 'the pill makes me go crazy!'" said Dr. Ellen Wiebe, a clinician and professor of reproductive health at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who was not involved with the editorial.

Studying women's experience with birth control pills, Wiebe and her colleagues found that 25 to 35 percent of women are sensitive to hormones in birth control pills, and experience negative emotional and sexual side effects.

"Some women feel great on birth control pills, it controls their acne and premenstrual syndrome (PMS), but others feel like they've got PMS all month instead of a few days," Wiebe said.

About 30 percent of women using hormonal contraception discontinue use because of dissatisfaction, and they frequently cite mood-related side effects as the reason, according to studies published in the journal Contraception in 2001 and 2007.

Other problems women have with current options are planning and convenience.

"Some women don't want to use a method all the time when they are only having sex once in a while. It just doesn't make sense to them," Raymond said.

Email Bahar Gholipour. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.

The Catholic Church should focus less on narrow and controversial social issues, such as gay rights, contraception and abortion, the Pope said in a candid interview with a Jesuit magazine released today (Sept. 19).

"We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods," Pope Francis told America Magazine. The Pope is not changing the church's official stance on these issues — it still opposes abortion, gay marriage and contraceptive use — but arguing that a narrow emphasis on certain dogma comes at the expense of the church's central message.

"The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules," he said. "The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all."

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter @tiaghose. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. 

Doctors are misinformed about which women can receive one type of birth control, a new study suggests.

Researchers surveyed health care providers at family planning clinics in Colorado and Iowa, finding that only about half of the providers said they considered Paraguard and Mirena, types of intrauterine devices (IUDs), safe and reliable for preventing pregnancy in women who had just had babies.

In addition, about 30 percent of respondents said these IUDs were not safe for women who had just had abortions.

These views conflict with new recommendations from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which said last year that almost all women, including those who have recently had a baby or abortion, can safely receive IUDs.

Moreover, health care providers at family planning clinics are likely more informed about IUD use than the average doctor. Therefore, the misconceptions among doctors in general could be even more widespread, said study researcher Claire Brindis, a director of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco.

For patients, the message is: know the facts about IUDs, Brindis said. Women should discuss their level of comfort with inserting IUDs with their doctors, and those women who want this kind of birth control should find a doctor who is willing to perform the procedure.

For many women, IUDs may be more effective at preventing pregnancy than are birth control pills. A study published in May in the New England Journal of Medicine found that women who used birth control pills, skin patches or vaginal rings were 20 times more likely to get pregnant over a three-year period than women who used IUDs or implants.

The devices do carry risks, however; women who currently have pelvic infections or get them frequently should not use the devices. ParaGard, which is a copper, hormone-free device, has been associated with heavy bleeding, severe cramping and vaginal inflammation. Mirena, which releases small amounts of a synthetic progestin hormone, may be associated with hormonal side effects, such as acne, weight gain or mood changes. Neither device protects against sexually transmitted infections.

But some doctors may have concerns that an IUD could tear the uterus of a woman who has just had a baby or an abortion; the latest science does not support these worries, however, Brindis said. Changes since the devices first appeared may contribute to the misunderstanding, she said. Doctors who received their medical training many years ago may be less informed about today's IUDs, or may associate IUDs with the stigma attached to the devices in the 1970s, when one IUD called the Dalkon Shield was linked with bacterial infections of the uterus, Brindis said.

In the new study, Brindis and colleagues analyzed information from 273 doctors, physician's assistants, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and registered nurses. Participants filled out surveys in 2010 and 2012. During that period, family planning agencies had pushed to increase education about IUDs among health care providers in Iowa and Colorado, where they survey occurred.

That education has helped somewhat — the percentage of doctors who said IUDs were safe and reliable for postpartum women increased from 37 percent to 50 percent over the two-year period. But there is still a lot of room for improvement, Brindis said.

"We still have a long way to go to have a wide acceptance," Brindis said. IUDs are often considered a "last resort" for birth control, but there is no need to view them this way, she said.

For a woman with insurance, an IUD costs about $500 — more expensive than a single payment for birth control pills. But over the long-term, an IUD that lasts five or 10 years can cost less than many months of pill prescriptions, Brindis said.

The study was presented this week at the American Public Health Association meeting in San Francisco. It was conducted in collaboration with Ashley Philliber and colleagues at Philliber Research Associates, an independent research and evaluation firm in Accord, N.Y.

Pass it on: Almost all women are eligible for IUDs.

Follow Rachael Rettner on Twitter @RachaelRettner, or MyHealthNewsDaily @MyHealth_MHND.We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Legislation focused on abortion restrictions has been proposed frequently over the past few years. But unlike in previous years, lawmakers are now aiming more at banning abortions rather than simply regulating them, an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute finds.

During the first quarter of 2013, 694 provisions on reproductive health and rights were introduced, and 93 of these had been approved by one or more legislative bodies, according to Guttmacher, a pro-abortion-rights nonprofit centered on reproductive health and rights that tracks abortion legislation and conducts quarterly analyses.

Many of these abortion restrictions occurred at the state level. Nearly half introduced in the first three months aim to restrict access to abortion, the Guttmacher analysis found.

"Over the past two years, what we have seen is really a tidal wave of abortion restrictions across the country," Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, told LiveScience.

State abortion bans

Fourteen states have trotted out measures to ban abortion prior to "viability" — the point at which a fetus could survive outside the uterus. These measures take three forms: banning all abortions, banning abortions at some point in the first trimester of pregnancy and banning abortions at 20 weeks after fertilization. [Trimester Tales: 8 Odd Changes That Happen During Pregnancy]

All of these proposals violate U.S. Supreme Court decisions ruling that states cannot impose an undue burden on women seeking an abortion before viability (typically, just after the second trimester). In a direct challenge to the rulings, Arkansas and North Dakota have already banned most abortions that would occur at some time during the first trimester of pregnancy. Arkansas has enacted laws to ban abortions at 20 weeks after fertilization, while nine other states have put forth similar laws.

"In a sense, we're seeing a one-upmanship game," Nash said.

Lawmakers in 10 states have sought to ban all or most abortions. In eight of these states (Alabama, Iowa, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington), lawmakers seek bans on the grounds that "personhood" begins at conception, which would effectively ban all abortions. In four states (Colorado, Florida, Iowa and North Dakota), lawmakers propose to ban abortion except for circumstances in which the mother's life is endangered or rape or incest has occurred.

Restricting medication abortions

Some states have tried to restrict what are known as medication abortions, which use drugs to end a pregnancy. These medications include the so-called abortion pill mifepristone, also known as RU-486. Eight states (Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas) have introduced measures to dramatically restrict access to this kind of abortion.

One type of restriction would require doctors prescribing the medication to be in the same room as the patient, barring prescriptions made over the phone. Seven states currently have a telemedicine ban in place, and in the first quarter of 2013, Mississippi's two legislative houses both approved such a ban. That legislation is awaiting further debate. Similar bans have been passed by one legislative body in both Alabama and Indiana.

Other states aim to restrict medication abortions that don't follow the strict protocol of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), even though a widely used, simpler protocol has been shown to be safe and effective. Arizona and Ohio already have this restriction in place, and Iowa and Texas have pending legislation for such a measure. A legal challenge has prompted similar legislation in North Dakota.

Better sex ed

Yet, even as legal restrictions on abortions mount, a few states are looking to expand access to sex education, research showed. [Sex Education in the US States (Infographic)]

Colorado recently approved a measure requiring all sex education in the state to fit certain criteria: It must be scientifically proven to delay the onset of sexual activity, reduce the frequency of sex and number of sexual partners among teens, or increase the use of contraception. The measure would essentially do away with abstinence-only education; it awaits approval from the state's governor. Hawaii's legislature, meanwhile, has adopted a measure that would teach skills for creating healthy relationships, making decisions and discussing sex with family members.

The Guttmacher Institute's founding purpose "was to add facts into the debate around family planning and abortion, and help provide an evidence base when discussing these issues," Nash said.

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

The new Pope Francis, Argentinean Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is the first South American pope and the first Jesuit to lead the Catholic Church. Despite these breaks with tradition, Francis is expected to remain conservative on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, scholars say.

The 76-year-old pope was born in Buenos Aires in 1936 and earned a master's degree in chemistry before taking the cloth and becoming a Jesuit. Jesuits are part of a Roman Catholic religious order known for their work in education, intellectual research, cultural pursuits and missionary efforts.

"Many Jesuits got their Ph.D.s in science before they went into theology," John Haught, a theology professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., told LiveScience. Haught suspects the pope will take the view that science and faith are compatible, because "they are talking about different things," adding he would be shocked if the new pope "were anything but friendly to the natural sciences."

The new pope is more prominently known for his commitment to social justice for the poor. He is thought to have taken the name "Francis" in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, a champion of the poor. [Saint or Slacker? Test Your Religious Knowledge]

"We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least," Bergogliio said during a gathering of Latin American bishops in 2007, as reported by the National Catholic Reporter. "The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers."

The pope has also shown compassion for victims of HIV and AIDS, visiting a hospice in 2001 in Argentina where he kissed 12 AIDS patients and washed their feet, according to an ITV News report.

But on moral and social issues, Bergoglio has been highly orthodox. He has been a staunch opponent of abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage. In response to legislation to allow same-sex marriage introduced by the Argentine government in 2010, he said, "We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God." He also called adoption by gay parents a form a discrimination against children, provoking an angry rebuke from Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

"On issues like abortion or gay marriage, I don't think it's reasonable to expect any changes," from the new pope, historian Thomas Noble of the University of Notre Dame told LiveScience. "These are not perceived as scientific issues, they are perceived as moral issues."

Noble declined to speculate further on what kind of pope Francis would be. "I think at this moment, it would be irresponsible to make predictions," Noble said, adding that the world will have a better idea in a week or two.

The pope began his first day of the papacy in private prayer at a Roman basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary. He will be officially inaugurated as Bishop of Rome in St. Peter's Square tomorrow (March 16).

Follow Tanya Lewis @tanyalewis314. Follow us @livescience, Facebook or Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Editor's note: As of August 17, 2022, the constitutional right to abortion has been eliminated in the U.S., following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. The following article was published on Jan 18, 2013, and therefore the legal information is no longer accurate. 

Next Tuesday, Jan. 22, will mark the 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the historic Supreme Court decision that protected a woman's right to have an abortion. Despite heated political debates over the issue, Americans' attitudes toward abortion have remained quite stable over the past few decades, and according to a new survey, most don't want to reverse the high court's decision — if they even know what it's about. The poll also found that among Americans under 30, less than half knew that Roe v. Wade dealt with abortion.

A national survey from the Pew Research Center found that 63 percent of Americans don't want Roe v. Wade overturned, compared with 29 percent who want the 1973 ruling reversed. These opinions are hardly changed from Pew's surveys in 2003 and 1993, when 31 percent and 34 percent, respectively, wanted the decision overturned.

Most people surveyed by Pew (62 percent) knew that Roe v. Wade dealt with abortion rather than another issue, like school desegregation (7 percent), the death penalty (5 percent) or environmental protection (5 percent). Twenty percent didn't know at all. But there was an age gap in awareness of the decision. Among those ages 50 to 64, 74 percent knew the ruling had to do with abortion, but among those younger than 30, just 44 percent knew this, Pew said.

But that lack of awareness among younger generations might not be all that surprising considering that the under-30 set was also the least likely to think abortion is an a important issue. Among those 18-29, 62 percent described abortion as "not that important compared to other issues," compared with 51 percent of 50- to 64-year-olds who said the same.

Revealing a perhaps unsurprising political gap, 46 percent of Republicans surveyed said Roe v. Wade should be overturned and 48 percent said it should not, while Democrats strongly opposed reversing the decision, 74 to 20 percent. There was no gender gap, however, in public opinion on the issue. Pew found that 64 percent of women and 63 percent of men opposed overturning the decision.

Pew said its poll was conducted Jan. 9 to 13 among a national sample of 1,502 adults.

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This article was updated on August 17, 2022 by Live Science contributor Alice Ball following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

While President Barack Obama's victory was the big news of the night, marijuana enthusiasts and gay marriage supporters may have had the biggest reasons to celebrate Tuesday's election results.

Here are five ways the results may have lasting impact on controversial social matters, from same-sex marriage to drug laws.

1. Drug laws

Last night's elections marked a big win for marijuana legalization. Washington state and Colorado legalized recreational use of the drug. (An Oregon legalization measure was defeated). Massachusetts legalized medical marijuana.

Support for marijuana legalization has steadily increased, and last year, for the first time, a Gallup poll found 50 percent of Americans supported legalizing the drug.

But as Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said, it may not be time to open the Cheetos and Goldfish snacks just yet. The new laws set the stage for a showdown between the federal and state governments. Under federal law, marijuana is an illegal drug with no beneficial use, and the Department of Justice said its enforcement policies haven't changed. Obama hasn't yet said whether, or how, he'd enforce federal laws that clash with the new state laws.

2. Gay marriage

This election brought good news for same-sex partners. Maryland legalized gay marriage, Maine reactivated its same-sex marriage law, and Minnesota rejected a ballot measure that would have barred gay marriage. As of Tuesday night, the Washington initiative to legalize gay marriage was ahead, with 52 percent of the vote counted. The tallying there is expected to last days.

This election marked the first time that same-sex marriage has won at the ballot box rather than in the statehouse or the courts. [5 Myths About Gay People Debunked]

In public opinion polls, support for gay marriage has steadily increased over the last decade, and younger voters overwhelmingly support same-sex couples' right to marry.

Obama's re-election stands to be a boon for gay-marriage supporters. Though he initially opposed allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, the president said in May that his views had "evolved," and he instructed the Department of Justice to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court.

3. Immigration

Two states weighed in on illegal immigration. Voters in Maryland approved its version of the DREAM Act, extending in-state college tuition to high school graduates who as children had been brought to the country illegally.

Montana, meanwhile, voted to cut off state services for undocumented immigrants.

In his second term, Obama is likely to renew the push for comprehensive immigration reform, according to news reports. He  also is likely push for the passage of the DREAM Act, which would provide people brought here illegally with a path to citizenship if they attend college or enroll in the U.S. military.

4. Abortion

Abortion, the hottest of hot-button social issues, had a relatively quiet night. Voters in Florida rejected a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited taxpayer funding of abortion and exclude abortion from privacy rights in the Florida constitution.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected a "personhood" amendment before it could even make it to the ballot, saying it was clearly unconstitutional. The amendment would have labeled fertilized eggs from the time of conception as "persons."

Obama's re-election also may be good news for supporters of abortion rights. With the liberal wing of the Supreme Court aging, Obama may have the chance to nominate one or even two Supreme Court Justices, shoring up support for abortion rights on the court.

It also means that any national abortion legislation will arrive on Obama's desk for signing before it can be approved.

5. Death

The country may be divided on when life begins, but it's also conflicted about death.

Assisted suicide and the death penalty came up for votes, with mixed results. Massachusetts narrowly rejected a ballot measure to allow terminally ill patients to commit suicide with the aid of a doctor.

California resoundingly defeated a measure that would have abolished the death penalty and converted all death-row sentences to life without parole.

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Genetic testing is increasingly able to tell parents more about their fetuses with less risk than ever before. But without better regulation, these tests could become the target of anti-abortion groups, a health-law expert says.

Writing this week in the journal Nature, Jaime King of the University of California Hastings College of Law warns that early, noninvasive genetic tests for fetuses are becoming increasingly common — but regulation of these tests isn't keeping up. So far, these noninvasive prenatal tests (NIPTs) are offered for a limited range of genetic diseases under a doctor's supervision, King said. That could soon change.

"There are about 50 startups that have been created to look at NIPT technology, and there's nothing that would really prevent them from offering it direct-to-consumer," King told LiveScience. "There's such an interest from prospective parents in knowing as much as they can about their fetus, that if they could do a blood test at home, there would likely be a market for that."

Noninvasive testing

Noninvasive prenatal tests use maternal blood, not amniotic fluid, to screen for genetic abnormalities. Because tests that use amniotic fluid require puncturing the amniotic sac around the fetus, those methods can increase the risk of miscarriage. Not so for NIPTs, which can also be used earlier in pregnancy. [7 Diseases You Can Learn from a Genetic Test]

These technological leaps are occurring at the same time that state legislatures are increasingly pushing anti-abortion laws, creating potential conflict given that news of an untreatable genetic disorder might prompt the choice to abort, King said. Four states have already banned abortion on the grounds of the fetus' sex, and a bill introduced in Missouri would also forbid abortion on the basis of a "genetic abnormality diagnosis."

Too much information?

It's not clear whether the Missouri law will have much traction — it's currently not on the state legislative calendar — but genetic testing is an area where regulation lags behind technology. Companies such as 23andMe already offer direct-to-consumer genetic testing for adults by mail-in kit; meanwhile, researchers at the University of Washington and Stanford University have independently sequenced whole fetal genomes using only a pregnant woman's blood. (Fetal cells can cross the placenta and circulate in a mother's bloodstream.) [8 Odd Changes That Happen During Pregnancy]

"Once we're capable of doing that and making it commercially available, at that point, the real fear is that parents will get inundated with a flood of information about their fetus and not really understand what the full range of implications are," King said.

Companies that currently market these tests have taken a conservative approach, offering them through doctors' offices only. San Jose, Calif.-based company Ariosa Diagnostics, the maker of a test that can detect common genetic problems as early as 10 weeks into a pregnancy, calls itself "fully committed to the responsible introduction of our service."

"The tests should be ordered only through a health-care provider as the provider will need to explain and counsel the patient on the benefits and limitations of testing, other testing options, as well as how to interpret the results," Ariosa CEO Ken Song told LiveScience.

Similar concerns of information overload have come up for direct-to-consumer genetics tests for adults, but prenatal testing has an extra layer of controversy, given that the only option for many conditions is the choice to abort or continue the pregnancy. (Research is ongoing on gene therapy in the womb to cure fetuses before they are born, but treatments won't be available anytime soon.) As tests become available for more conditions — and even expand to the whole genome — these choices may get more complicated. Forget the question of whether to abort a fetus with Down syndrome; what about a fetus with a higher-than-average risk of developing early heart disease or dementia at age 40? [10 Worst Hereditary Conditions]

Prenatal testing and abortion

Anti-abortion groups, for their part, do not necessarily oppose prenatal testing, but do often oppose abortion in response to those test results.

"Our model (the same one as the sex-selection ban) prohibits abortion when it is done solely because the unborn child has been diagnosed with Down syndrome or a genetic abnormality," Americans United for Life's legal team told LiveScience in an email.

King worries that legislative pushes by groups like Americans United for Life could lead to the government attempting to draw lines between what genetic diseases represent "acceptable" reasons for abortions and which don't. It's easy to imagine the controversy that would result: Should parents have to carry a fetus with Tay-Sachs disease, an incurable neurological disorder that slowly paralyzes and kills a child by age 4 or so? What about Down syndrome, which can come with life-threatening physical complications and major challenges, but which does not at all preclude a fulfilling life? What about Parkinson's disease, a deadly neurological disorder that doesn’t usually set in until age 50 or so?

"It's highly likely that this will get involved in the abortion wars," said Hank Greely, a Stanford University law professor who was not involved in King's editorial but who specializes in the legal implications of new biomedical technology.

One of the first issues that will likely catch fire, Greely told LiveScience, is in early testing for the sex of the fetus, which is the "easiest thing to test for" using maternal blood. Restrictions on sex-selective abortions are relatively easy to pass, King said, because most people agree that abortions solely based on sex are a bad thing. On the other hand, she said, these laws open up the avenue of asking women why they're choosing abortion, a new area that could lead to more laws differentiating "good" from "bad" abortions.

"I would like for people to understand that if you are voting in favor of a sex-selective abortion ban, then what you are really doing is opening the avenue toward much larger restriction on abortion," King said.

The prenatal testing wars may also end up echoing the recent contraception wars, which present the question of who pays, Greely said. States have some leeway in determining what Medicaid will pay for, and it's possible that conservative states will see noninvasive prenatal testing as a gateway to more abortions and so refuse to fund them through Medicaid. Because Medicaid pays for 40 percent of U.S. births, that refusal could have huge repercussions. Women with money or good insurance could afford the tests; poor women and women without good insurance could not.

"I think we need to start paying attention to this issue now," Greely said. "It's not yet at the explosive point, but that's coming soon."

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

A Republican congressman's claim that advances in science and technology mean pregnancy no longer threatens a woman's life and health doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny.

In fact, conditions ranging from ectopic pregnancy, in which an embryo implants outside the uterus, to preeclampsia, which causes skyrocketing blood pressure and can lead to strokes and seizures, can and do threaten the lives of pregnant women. Preeclampsia and gestational high blood pressure occur in about 6 percent to 8 percent of U.S. pregnancies, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

While those conditions are common, many individual cases have complications as well, said Alison Cahill, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. 

"As a high-risk obstetrician, I see many women, in addition to those things, who have pre-existing conditions, so other illness or medical problems that then make their pregnancy high-risk," Cahill told LiveScience. 

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) told reporters Thursday night that he is anti-abortion without exception for rape, incest, or life or health of the mother, Radio 720 WGN in Chicago reported. He defended his stance on the life-and-health exceptions by saying, "This is an issue that opponents of [pro-] life throw out there to make us look unreasonable. There is no such exception as life of the mother and as far as health of the mother, same thing, with advances in science and technology, health of the mother has become a tool for abortions for any time under any reason."

Statistics tell a different story. In fact, though pregnancy-related deaths fell dramatically in the 20th century, they have been on the rise since 1987, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 7.2 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987. By 2003, that number had risen to 14.5 deaths per 100,000 live births. [6 Politicians Who Got the Science Wrong]

Better recordkeeping may account for some of the rise, according to the CDC, but an increase in chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity may also explain the increased risk of complications.

And despite Walsh's comments, pregnancy complications can't always be solved by modern technology. Ectopic pregnancy, for example, affects 19.7 out of every 1,000 North American pregnancies, according to a paper published in February 2000 in the journal American Family Physician. In these cases, embryos almost always implant in the fallopian tubes, the connection between the ovaries and the uterus. The fallopian tubes aren't capable of supporting a pregnancy; a growing embryo will rupture them, which can cause uncontrollable bleeding. There is no technology available to save these pregnancies.

Some ectopic pregnancies miscarry on their own, but most require a surgical or medical abortion to prevent those life-threatening ruptures.

Preeclampsia is another pregnancy condition that stumps modern medicine. The condition usually develops after 20 weeks of gestation for reasons not fully understood. The only treatment is delivery. 

Embolism (when a clot blocks a blood vessel), hemorrhage and the exacerbation of pre-existing conditions such as diabetes or heart disease are the top causes of pregnancy-related death, according to a 2003 paper published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. That study also found that pregnancy complications are not equal-opportunity killers. Black women were nearly four times as likely as white women to die because of pregnancy. Teens and women in their late 30s or older were also at higher risk of pregnancy-related deaths.

Pregnancy can also turn chronic conditions into life-threatening ones. Cardiovascular disorders such as pulmonary hypertension and vessel abnormalities can be worsened by pregnancy, Cahill said. Pre-existing liver and kidney diseases can also threaten expectant mothers' lives.

"I wish that modern science and modern medicine cured all of those things, but unfrotuatnely that's just simply not true," Cahill said. 

Walsh joins several other politicians this election cycle in glossing over scientific fact in pursuit of an ideological point. In August, Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) claimed that the female body "has ways to try to shut that whole thing down" in regards to pregnancy from rape. (Akin walked back his comments after a public outcry.) And earlier this month, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, said that he believes the Earth is 9,000 years old, calling evolution, the Big Bang Theory and embryology "lies straight from the pit of hell."

Editor's Note: This article was updated on Tuesday, Oct. 23 to correct Alison Cahill's title from "professor" to "assistant professor."

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Editor's note: As of August 4, 2022, the constitutional right to abortion has been eliminated in the U.S. This is following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. The following article was published on Oct 4, 2012, and therefore any legal information regarding abortion is no longer accurate. 

Providing free, reliable birth control to women could prevent between 41 percent and 71 percent of abortions in the United States, new research finds.

In a study published today (Oct. 4) in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, researchers provided free methods of reversible, reliable contraception to more than 9,000 teens and women in the St. Louis area. They found that the program reduced the abortion rate among these women by 62 percent to 78 percent.

"The impact of providing no-cost birth control was far greater than we expected in terms of unintended pregnancies," lead author Jeff Peipert, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Washington University School of Medicine, said in a statement. "We think improving access to birth control, particularly IUDs [intrauterine devices] and [hormone] implants, coupled with education on the most effective methods, has the potential to significantly decrease the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions in this country."

The findings have implications for public policy, especially given that President Obama's health-care plan requires employers to offer plans that include birth control coverage. This requirement has been a point of controversy in the lead-up to the 2012 election.

Between 2006 and 2008, 49 percent of all pregnancies in America were unplanned, according to the CDC's National Survey of Family Growth. About 43 percent of these unintended pregnancies ended in abortion. Meanwhile, a 2011 study in the journal Contraception estimated that unintended births cost U.S. taxpayers about $11 billion a year.

To see if access to free contraception could budge those numbers, Peipert and his colleagues recruited 9,256 women ages 14 to 45 living in the St. Louis area through flyers, doctors and word-of-mouth. They also recruited patients from the city's two abortion clinics. Participants were given the option of using any reversible birth control method, from the birth control pill to a hormonal birth control patch to a long-lasting IUD or hormonal implant. [7 Surprising Facts About the Pill]

More than half of the women chose IUDs, 17 percent picked hormonal implants (tiny rods placed under the skin that release hormones), and the rest chose pills, patches and other hormonal methods. As a result, the researchers found, both teen births and overall abortion rates plummeted.

Among women in the free contraceptive program, the teen birth rate was 6.3 per 1,000 women, a huge difference from the national teen birth rate of 34.3 per 1,000 women.

Likewise, the abortion rate among women in the program was 4.4 to 7.5 per 1,000 between 2008 and 2010. Nationally, there are 19.6 abortions per every thousand women, a 62 percent to 78 percent difference. In the St. Louis area, the overall abortion rate in that time frame was between 13.4 and 17 abortions per 1,000 women.

The study highlights the importance of long-acting contraception methods such as the IUD, researchers said. Birth control pills have a higher failure rate than these methods, because women have to remember to take a pill at the same time every day. But IUDs, which last about 10 years, can cost more than $800, the researchers said, putting them out of reach for many lower-income women who may not be able to come up with that kind of money in one lump sum.

"Unintended pregnancy remains a major health problem in the United States, with higher proportions among teenagers and women with less education and lower economic status," Peipert said. "The results of this study demonstrate that we can reduce the rate of unintended pregnancy and this is key to reducing abortions in this country."

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

This article was updated on August 4, 2022 by Live Science contributor Alice Ball following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Editor's note: As of August 5, 2022, the constitutional right to abortion has been eliminated in the U.S., following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. The following article was published on Sep 12, 2012, and therefore any legal information is longer accurate. 

Since 1973, American law has protected health-care workers who object to abortion by prohibiting discrimination against those who refuse to assist with the procedure. Now, a new editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) suggests that workers who want to provide abortions should get these "conscience exceptions" from anti-abortion legislation as well.  

Conscience or refusal exceptions allow health-care workers to refuse to perform medical procedures, including abortions, that they find wrong on moral or religious grounds. These laws generally prevent medical professionals from being sued or fired for refusing to participate in a procedure. For example, a nurse at a general hospital or private practice where the doctor provided abortions is not be required to assist in the procedure, and under the law, would not be discriminated against for refusing. 

Historically, conscience objections have been linked only with anti-abortion causes, writes Lisa Harris, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan Health System, in the Sept. 13 issue of NEJM. The assumption, she writes, is that refusing to provide abortions is the "moral" thing to do, an understanding that leaves out abortion providers, many of whom provide the service because of strong moral beliefs, Harris said.

"Conscience doesn't mean you have a specific set of beliefs," Harris told LiveScience. "Conscience means you're a human being, and human beings vary in their beliefs."

The first conscience objection came shortly after the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. The 1973 Church amendment ensures that health-care workers cannot be required to perform abortions or sterilizations, nor can they be discriminated against for refusing.

More recently, conscience or refusal clauses have been under debate for pharmacists who do not want to supply emergency contraception, a form of hormonal birth control that can be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected intercourse. Many states, including Colorado, Florida and Maine, have laws allowing physicians and other medical professionals to refuse to dispense contraceptives if they have religious or moral objections. [The History & Future of Birth Control]

On the other hand, laws restricting abortion access don't come with conscience clauses, Harris said. For example, in May, Georgia's governor signed into law legislation that prevents most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. That law leaves no "conscience clause" for providers who might see providing a patient with a later abortion as the moral choice in some cases, Harris said.

Many abortion providers are pro-abortion rights because they have strong moral beliefs regarding women's reproductive autonomy, because they are concerned with the mother's health or for other reasons, she said. These moral judgments get lost in the abortion debate, Harris said.

Harris said she'd like to see a clause recognizing moral reasons for having and providing abortions. "Right now, the only folks who are actively claiming moral ground are the people who oppose abortions," she said.

Compounding the problem, Harris said, is that there is no standard of care for enacting a conscience clause. Doctors are not required to meet any particular standard to do so, nor are there broad policies in place to ensure that patients are treated humanely in the process, she said.

"I've seen patients be really hurt and humiliated by doctors who they turned to, to help them get an abortion, who told them they were going to burn in hell and things like that," Harris said. She emphasized that she believes that conscience clauses are important and that no one should be forced to do something they morally object to, but added, "they have to do it humanely and safely, and right now we don't have any standard of care."

Outlining such standards would be a job for doctors, bioethicists and medical professional organizations, Harris said.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+. 

This article was updated on August 5, 2022 by Live Science contributor Alice Ball following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Editor's note: As of August 17, 2022, the constitutional right to abortion has been eliminated in the U.S., following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. The following article was published on Aug 23, 2012, and therefore the legal information is no longer accurate. 

Rep. Todd Akin's statements about abortion shed light on the Missouri Republican's view that abortion should be illegal in all cases, including rape or incest. However, it's a position that few in the American public are willing to take.

According to polling data, Americans are split fairly evenly on whether or not they think abortion should be legal, but the opinions hover in a much more gray area than is usually seen in politicians' chatter.

In an interview last November, political scientist Morris Fiorina, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, explained the public's abortion views.

"Most Americans are troubled," Fiorina told LiveScience. "They think there are too many abortions, but they don't want to make it illegal."

A 2009 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 46 percent of people say abortion should be legal in all or most cases; on the other side, 44 percent say abortion should always or mostly be illegal.

Even among those who'd like to see abortion restrictions tightened, a minority believe, like Akin, that the procedure should be illegal without exception. According to the same Pew poll, only 18 percent of Americans held that viewpoint. The numbers were unchanged from the previous year's survey, Pew reported.

Other polls find similar results. A May 2012 Gallup poll with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent found that 77 percent of Americans thought abortion should be always legal or sometimes legal. Twenty percent said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. Notably, this 20 percent was much smaller than the number of people who declared themselves "pro-life" (50 percent), suggesting that people who identify with that label do not always reject abortion in every circumstance. [10 Odd Facts About the Female Body]

Attempts to restrict abortion access have become more frequent in recent years. In 2011, states enacted a record 135 reproductive health and rights provisions, 68 percent of which restricted abortion access, according to the reproductive health organization the Guttmacher Institute. In the first three months of 2012 alone, legislators around the country introduced 944 reproductive health-related bills, half of which were designed to restrict abortion access (many of these bills will likely fail to pass as happens with many bills.)

Nevertheless, public opinion about abortion has remained stable since the 1970s. For example, a long-running survey by American National Election Studies found that 11 percent of people said abortion should always be illegal in 1972. As of 2008, that number had budged only 4 points, to 15 percent.

Even so, abortion battles are unlikely to go away, Fiorina told LiveScience.

"As long as there are really vocal minorities out there that regard [abortion] as the most important issue in our lifetime, and some of them do, there will be attempts to get it on the agenda," he said.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+. 

This article was updated on August 17, 2022 by Live Science contributor Alice Ball following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Science-Challenged Politicians

America does not necessarily elect her politicians for their scientific savvy. So when the issues of the day require a grasp on science, politicians' statements can get a little weird. Here are six examples of politicians who have stumbled over science.

Todd Akin and "legitimate" rape

Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo) is in hot water with the public — and his own political party — for claiming that pregnancy from "legitimate rape" is rare because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Akin's views, which he has since recanted, are extremely non-scientific. Pregnancy requires sperm and egg, and it doesn't matter how the two meet.

Rick Santorum's "Tell that to a plant."

> Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum is an avid denier of global warming, decrying warnings of climate change as a hoax. In one of his more memorable comments, Santorum scoffed at fears of carbon emissions in a speech at the Gulf Coast Energy Summit in Biloxi, Miss.

"The dangers of carbon dioxide?" Santorum said on March 12, 2012. "Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is."

Santorum is not alone in his use of the "carbon is not dangerous" talking point. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has downplayed human carbon emissions arguing that carbon dioxide is "natural," and saying, "life on planet Earth can't even exist without carbon dioxide." [Busted! 10 Climate Change Myths]

Plants do require carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. But what's the saying about too much of a good thing? In fact, too much CO2 can actually decrease photosynthesis in some plants, according to a 1985 study published in the journal Photosynthesis Research. Overdosing on CO2 can also prevent some grasses, including wheat, from taking up nitrate, a crucial nutrient for plant growth, according to research published in the journal Science in 2010.

More importantly, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, meaning it traps heat in our atmosphere. As such the gas can be very dangerous if it means an increase in global average temperatures that melt ice caps, raise sea levels and cause more extreme weather events.

Michele Bachmann's vaccine blunder

After a Republican debate in September 2011, then-presidential nominee hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann went on Fox News and NBC with an anecdote warning against Gardasil, a vaccine that protects against a virus that can cause cervical cancer.

"There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate," Bachmann told Fox's Greta Van Susteren. "She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine. There are very dangerous consequences."

Bachmann's comments reflect anti-vaccine notions found on both the political right and left, but they don't appear to reflect reality. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) keep a national database of adverse vaccine reactions. For Gardasil, the most common problems are fainting (from the jab), pain and redness at the site of the injection, and dizziness, nausea and headache. There have not been reports of mental retardation caused by the vaccine.

Christine O'Donnell and the mice with human brains

Sometimes, political science-gaffes spring from misremembered news bites. That seems to be the case for Christine O'Donnell, a Tea Party favorite who, during an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor in 2007, made a strange case against cloning and stem-cell research.

"American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains," O'Donnell said. "So they're already into this experiment."

Not quite. It seems the research O'Donnell was referring to was a 2005 study in which fetal mice were injected with human embryonic stem cells. The mice were born with human brain cells in their skulls, but certainly not human brains — and there was no "cross-breeding" involved. The mouse brains were more than 99 percent mouse cells, and the interloping neurons did not change the rodents' behavior. The ultimate goal of the study was to develop stem-cell treatments for neurological diseases, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Tom Coburn and breast implants

Are breast implants good or bad for you? Don't ask Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). During a 2005 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about class-action lawsuits, Coburn brought up lawsuits related to silicone breast implants.

"I thought I would share with you what science says today about silicone breast implants," the Washington Post quotes Coburn saying. "If you have them, you're healthier than if you don't. That is what the ultimate science shows. … In fact, there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and, in fact, they make you healthier."

It's not entirely clear what health benefits Coburn was referring to, though SourceWatch, a website run by the Center for Media and Democracy, suggests that perhaps he meant to reference a 2005 study published in the journal Breast Cancer Research that found that women who got breast implants after mastectomy from early-stage cancer had less risk for later breast cancer mortality than women who did not get them. The women with implants were younger and less likely to have disease that had spread than the women who did not get the implants, however. [Cleavage Countdown: 8 Facts About Breasts]

According to the National Cancer Institute, there is no association between breast implants and later breast cancer. The center did not, however, report any health benefits for a boob job.

Obama's autism waffling

During the presidential campaign of 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama struggled with the science of vaccines and autism. At a rally in Pennsylvania, Obama told the crowd, "We've seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it's connected to the vaccines … The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it."

While Obama avoided touting a link between vaccines and autism, his statement on "inconclusive" research doesn't pass muster. There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism, despite multiple studies that attempted to find such a link. In fact, the study that first touted this link was retracted in 2010 by the journal The Lancet, after an independent council concluded that the study was fatally flawed. For example, the 12 children in the study were cherry-picked by the researchers rather than being an arbitrary sample of patients as the paper had claimed.

Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo) is in hot water with the public — and his own political party — for claiming that pregnancy from "legitimate rape" is rare because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Akin's extremely non-scientific beliefs (which he has since recanted) put him in the company of a number of politicians who have made scientific claims that don't quite stand up to scrutiny. Here's a sample:

1. Rick Santorum's "tell that to a plant"

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum is an avid denier of global warming, decrying warnings of climate change as a hoax. In one of his more memorable comments, Santorum scoffed at fears of carbon emissions in a speech at the Gulf Coast Energy Summit in Biloxi, Miss.

"The dangers of carbon dioxide?" Santorum said on March 12, 2012. "Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is."

Santorum is not alone in his use of the "carbon is not dangerous" talking point. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has downplayed human carbon emissions arguing that carbon dioxide is "natural," and saying, "life on planet Earth can't even exist without carbon dioxide." [Busted! 10 Climate Change Myths]

Plants do require carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. But what's the saying about too much of a good thing? In fact, too much CO2 can actually decrease photosynthesis in some plants, according to a 1985 study published in the journal Photosynthesis Research. Overdosing on CO2 can also prevent some grasses, including wheat, from taking up nitrate, a crucial nutrient for plant growth, according to research published in the journal Science in 2010.

More importantly, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, meaning it traps heat in our atmosphere. As such the gas can be very dangerous if it means an increase in global average temperatures that melt ice caps, raise sea levels and cause more extreme weather events.

2. Michele Bachmann's vaccine blunder

After a Republican debate in September 2011, then-presidential nominee hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann went on Fox News and NBC with an anecdote warning against Gardasil, a vaccine that protects against a virus that can cause cervical cancer.

"There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate," Bachmann told Fox's Greta Van Susteren. "She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine. There are very dangerous consequences."

Bachmann's comments reflect anti-vaccine notions found on both the political right and left, but they don't appear to reflect reality. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) keep a national database of adverse vaccine reactions. For Gardasil, the most common problems are fainting (from the jab), pain and redness at the site of the injection, and dizziness, nausea and headache. There have not been reports of mental retardation caused by the vaccine.

3. Christine O'Donnell and the mice with human brains

Sometimes, political science-gaffes spring from misremembered news bites. That seems to be the case for Christine O'Donnell, a Tea Party favorite who, during an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor in 2007, made a strange case against cloning and stem-cell research.

"American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains," O'Donnell said. "So they're already into this experiment."

Not quite. It seems the research O'Donnell was referring to was a 2005 study in which fetal mice were injected with human embryonic stem cells. The mice were born with human brain cells in their skulls, but certainly not human brains — and there was no "cross-breeding" involved. The mouse brains were more than 99 percent mouse cells, and the interloping neurons did not change the rodents' behavior. The ultimate goal of the study was to develop stem-cell treatments for neurological diseases, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

4. Tom Coburn and breast implants

Are breast implants good or bad for you? Don't ask Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). During a 2005 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about class-action lawsuits, Coburn brought up lawsuits related to silicone breast implants.

"I thought I would share with you what science says today about silicone breast implants," the Washington Post quotes Coburn saying. "If you have them, you're healthier than if you don't. That is what the ultimate science shows. … In fact, there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and, in fact, they make you healthier."

It's not entirely clear what health benefits Coburn was referring to, though SourceWatch, a website run by the Center for Media and Democracy, suggests that perhaps he meant to reference a 2005 study published in the journal Breast Cancer Research that found that women who got breast implants after mastectomy from early-stage cancer had less risk for later breast cancer mortality than women who did not get them. The women with implants were younger and less likely to have disease that had spread than the women who did not get the implants, however. [Cleavage Countdown: 8 Facts About Breasts]

According to the National Cancer Institute, there is no association between breast implants and later breast cancer. The center did not, however, report any health benefits for a boob job.

5. Barack Obama's autism waffling

During the presidential campaign of 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama struggled with the science of vaccines and autism. At a rally in Pennsylvania, Obama told the crowd, "We've seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it's connected to the vaccines … The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it."

While Obama avoided touting a link between vaccines and autism, his statement on "inconclusive" research doesn't pass muster. There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism, despite multiple studies that attempted to find such a link. In fact, the study that first touted this link was retracted in 2010 by the journal The Lancet, after an independent council concluded that the study was fatally flawed. For example, the 12 children in the study were cherry-picked by the researchers rather than being an arbitrary sample of patients as the paper had claimed.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+. 

Despite recent political battles over contraception, the vast majority of Americans believe that birth control is morally okay, a new poll finds.

Eighty-nine percent of American adults say birth control is morally acceptable, according to a Gallup poll taken May 3 through May 6. Notably, 82 percent of Catholics are fine with birth control, the survey found. Catholic groups have been the most outspoken against the mandatory birth control coverage included in the 2010 Affordable Care Act. (A 2011 study by the Guttmacher Institute found that 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use or have used unnatural birth control.)

The new finds are based on phone surveys with a random sample of 1,024 U.S. adults, weighted to represent the general American population. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Gauging morals

Gallup pollsters asked participants about the acceptability of a variety of behaviors. Birth control topped the list as the most morally acceptable, with only 8 percent of people calling contraception "morally wrong." The least acceptable behavior was married men and women having affairs, which only 7 percent of Americans said was okay. [Birth Control Quiz: Test Your Knowledge]

Divorce was deemed acceptable by 67 percent of Americans, and gambling was considered okay by 64 percent. Just over half, or 54 percent, said that gay and lesbian relationships were morally okay, the same number who approved of having a baby outside of marriage.

After affairs, human cloning and polygamy rounded out the least-accepted behaviors, with only 10 percent and 11 percent of Americans okaying those two issues, respectively.

Other hot-button issues included:

·      sex between unmarried men and women, deemed acceptable by 59 percent of people

·      the death penalty, deemed moral by 58 percent of people

·      abortion, deemed morally acceptable by 38 percent of people

·      pornography, deemed morally acceptable by 31 percent of people

Partisan differences

There was little partisan divide on the birth-control issue, with 87 percent of Republicans and 90 percent of Democrats calling contraception morally okay. Republicans and Democrats were also in step with one another on issues of animal and human cloning (most disapproved) and on marital affairs.

This cross-party unity did not extend to all issues, however. The biggest divides showed up on the issues of the death penalty, abortion and gay and lesbian relationships. Almost three-quarters, 73 percent, of Republicans said the death penalty was okay, compared with 42 percent of Democrats. Only 22 percent of Republicans approved of abortion, compared with 52 percent of Democrats. And only 36 percent of Republicans said gay and lesbian relationships were okay, compared with 66 percent of Democrats.

Americans' views of these moral issues have held study this year compared to last year, Gallup reported Tuesday (May 22). The only noticeable difference is a decline in the number of people saying the death penalty is okay, which is down from 65 percent last year. The 58 percent approval rating of the death penalty is the lowest in 12 years of responses to this question, according to Gallup.

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

Long before they are ready to hatch, baby birds are awake and their brains churning, a new study suggests.

As for what wakes them up, the researchers found loud, meaningful sounds, like the squawks of other chickens, will rouse the sleeping embryos once they are more than 80 percent gestated.

"This work showed that embryo brains can function in a waking-like manner earlier than previously thought — well before birth," study researcher Evan Balaban of McGill University said in a statement. "Like adult brains, embryo brains also have neural circuitry that monitors the environment to selectively wake the brain up during important events."

During this same time period — the last 20 percent of embryonic life — sleeplike brain patterns also emerge, the researchers said.

"Unfortunately, no one yet understands exactly what sleep-brain activity patterns are controlling, and why they exist," Balaban told LiveScience. "Once embryo brains reach this state, we found that they could be awakened; we think the waking-like" pattern of activity is an immature version of what is seen in awake animals after birth."

Gestating eggs

To figure this out, the researchers used a new brain scanning technique that can detect very small changes in the levels of labeled sugar molecules in the brain. Brain areas taking up more sugar are more active. They watched the brains of chicken embryos for the last 30 percent of the time they were growing in their eggs. [11 Facts About the Baby Brain]

Before the chickens are 80 percent developed, the animals are not asleep or awake, their brains seem to be in a state similar to that of people who are in a coma or under anesthesia, Balaban said. During that time they are moving spontaneously, but show no brain activity.

Once the chicks reached that 80 percent mark in development, higher-brain regions, responsible for more complicated though processes including learning, switched on and began crackling with activity. At the same time, their spontaneous physical movements ceased and they began "sleeping." This waking brain activity means the chicks can even start learning, and can be "woken up" by chicken sounds.

"The last 30 percent of fetal brain development is a more interesting time than we previously thought, because it's when complex whole-brain functions that depend on coordination of widely separated brain areas first emerge," Balaban said. "Embryos begin to cycle through a variety of brain states."

Premature development

The findings have implications for human baby development. One big question is how this brain activity, if it indeed occurs before birth in humans, might change when a baby is born prematurely. If a baby is born early and its brain is switched on before the wiring is in place, it may have some long-term developmental consequences, Balaban said. [That's Incredible! 9 Amazing Baby Abilities]

"We are excited by the possibility that the techniques developed here can now be used to provide answers to these questions," Balaban said, since humans and chickens have similar brain activity patterns and follow a similar developmental plan.

"It is very likely that human fetuses also develop similar, integrated brain functions, including sleeplike states and the ability for "waking-like" brain activity before birth, although we can't say exactly when this would start," Balaban said.

The study is published in today's (May 3) issue of the journal Current Biology.

You can follow LiveScience staff writer Jennifer Welsh on Twitter, on Google+ or on Facebook. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter and on Facebook.

People who feel they'll live long lives are likely to make different life decisions, such as investing more in education and marrying later, than those who expect shorter stints on Earth, a new study suggests.

This phenomenon can happen at a subconscious level, so you may not even be aware that you're tying life expectancy with life decisions, the researchers said.

"It's not that you are sitting there thinking about how long you have to live," said study researcher Daniel Krupp of Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. "It doesn't have to be the sort of thing to be a logical, cold, rational decision. It can also be an emotional one. You feel like you want to have a baby soon; you feel like you want to get married now."

Previous research has shown this effect in some cities where life expectancy varies by neighborhood. The neighborhoods with the lowest life expectancy also show the youngest age of reproduction.

"When you are living in the slums of Detroit or Chicago or Rio, life is short and people are pretty good at knowing that. When you ask them, people are surprisingly realistic about some of these things," Krupp told LiveScience. "You have information coming in that says 'I'm safe' or 'I'm not safe,' and you make an adjustment."

Analyzing life

Krupp used data from Statistics Canada, a national agency that keeps tabs on the population, which includes information on life expectancy, fertility, marriage, divorce, abortion and educational background. Available data for individual provinces spanned from 2000 to 2006, and 1996 data came from the 139 "health regions" set up by the country's public health care system.

The researchers found positive links between general life expectancy (and therefore, people's subconscious ideas of how long they will live) and a number of traits that affect family structure. These traits include timing of reproduction and marriage, the propensity to terminate a pregnancy or a marriage, and the amount of time they are willing to invest in education.

The results held even after the researchers accounted for factors like wealth that could influence family and other life decisions, Krupp said.

Life changes

Krupp explained that while nobody really knows how long he or she will live, plenty of clues can be found and wrapped into our subconscious idea of life expectancy. For instance, if people have the notion that they will live longer — perhaps because they have a family history of long life, or because they've eaten right and avoided unhealthy behaviors — they will have their first children later in life, be more likely to have an abortion or divorce, and will have spent more years in school.

On the other hand, a person who doesn't feel he or she has long to live might stay in a marriage instead of divorcing, or may start having children earlier.

"There are a million cues out there that you can expect your life to be a long one or a short one," Krupp said. "As you get older, as you creep a little bit closer to death, you might make different decisions."

The study was published online today by the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

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The Virginia state Senate approved a watered-down version of a bill that would require women to get an ultrasound before having an abortion.

Tuesday's vote came after a national outcry over a provision in the original bill that would have required that women interested in an abortion get a transvaginal ultrasound if an abdominal ultrasound couldn't present the clearest picture of an embryo or fetus, Reuters reported. At nine weeks gestation, a fetus is about 0.9 inches (2.3 cm) long, so abdominal "jelly on the belly" ultrasounds often can't pick up clear images or heartbeats. According to the non-profit Guttmacher Institute, 88 percent of abortions occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, with 62 percent occurring before nine weeks.

The watered-down bill still requires women to get an abdominal ultrasound before an abortion, and doctors would be required to offer an additional transvaginal ultrasound if the first images were unclear. However, women will not have to receive the more invasive procedure. The bill includes an exemption for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest that has been reported to law enforcement.

The Virginia House will now consider the Senate changes, and then the proposed law will go to Virginia's Republican Governor Bob McDonnell for a signature. McDonnell had originally supported the bill, but backed off after opponents compared the transvaginal ultrasound requirement to state-sponsored rape. [Top 10 Historically Significant Political Protests]

Ultrasound requirements have passed in six states, with abortion-rights foes touting them as a way to discourage women from going through with abortions. But there is little scientific evidence that seeing images of a fetus or embryo changes minds. In one 2009 study, 72 percent of women given an option chose to view a sonogram image before an abortion. None changed their mind about the procedure.

The study isn't an exact replica of the situation in states such as Texas and North Carolina, where women are forced to receive an ultrasound and listen to a verbal description of the image. But abortion providers say ultrasounds don't change women's minds.

"I've never seen anybody who said they were coming in to an abortion, wanted to see the ultrasound, reacted to it and then changed their mind on the basis of that," Ellen Wiebe, an abortion provider and director of the Willow Women's Clinic in British Columbia, Canada, told LiveScience last year.

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

Teen pregnancies reached their lowest level in the United States in nearly 40 years in 2008, a nonprofit institute said in a report released today (Feb. 8). The research showed that teenage birth and abortion rates were also down, although disparities persisted in the statistics for black, white and Hispanic teens.

Sociologists Kathryn Kost and Stanley Henshaw of the Guttmacher Institute reached their conclusions by pooling and analyzing data from their institute, the National Center for Health Statistics, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program. The Guttmacher Institute is a nonprofit organization that seeks to advance reproductive health and protect abortion rights.

"The recent declines in teen pregnancy rates are great news," Kost said in a statement. "However, the continued inequities among racial and ethnic minorities are cause for concern. It is time to redouble our efforts to ensure that all teens have access to the information and contraceptive servicesthey need to prevent unwanted pregnancies." [7 Surprising Facts About the Pill]

A study published this month in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine suggests sex education may need to be tailored to the region where it is taught, since sex-ed classes are less effective in conservative states.

Pregnancy, birth and abortion rates decline

According to the report, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate reached its peak in 1990: About 117 of every 1,000 girls between 15 and 19 years of age became pregnant that year. Since then, the teen pregnancy rate has steadily decreased. In 2008, the most recent year with accuate statistics available, the rate was about 68 per 1,000 teens, a 42 percent decline from 1990.

For girls younger than 15, the pregnancy rate fell 62 percent, from 17.5 to 6.6 per 1,000 teens, over the same time span.

The teenage birth and abortion rates also declined over the past two decades. There were 40.2 births per 1,000 teens in 2008, 35 percent lower than the peak rate of 61.8 in 1991. In 2008, the teenage abortion rate reached its lowest point since abortion was legalized in 1973: The rate was 17.8 abortions per 1,000 women.

Although the teen pregnancy rate dropped by 37 percent among Latinas and 48 percent among black Americans since the early 1990s, the rates among black and Hispanic teens remained two to three times as high as that of non-Hispanic white teens, the report said.

The researchers also found vast differences in birth and abortion rates across racial and ethnic groups. In 2008, the birth rates for black and Hispanic teenagers and the abortion rate for Hispanic teenagers were twice that of the rates for non-Hispanic whites. More strikingly, the abortion rate for black teenagers in 2008 was four times the rate for non-Hispanic whites that year.

Better choices

Preliminary data from the CDC suggests that in both 2009 and 2010, the birth rates among teenagers and young adult women were at historic lows. Information is not yet available on the abortion trends over the last few years.

The researchers pointed out that recent studies have solely credited increased contraceptive use to the 1995-2002 decline in the pregnancy rate for 18- and 19-year-olds. For girls ages 15 to 17, 75 percent of the decline was found due to increased contraceptive use, while the other 25 percent was from reduced sexual activity.

Though it appeared today's teens are making the right decisions to prevent unintended pregnancies, that behavior is not guaranteed to continue, the researchers noted.

"Trends in teenage pregnancy, birth and abortion will need to be closely monitored over the coming years to determine how the reproductive behaviors of young women in the United States may be changing," the researchers wrote in their report, which is available on the Guttmacher Institute website. "Further research will be needed to understand the factors that are affecting these trends."

Editor's note: This article was originally published on December 16, 2011, before the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, thus eliminating the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. Any legal information in this article may no longer be accurate.

Younger women, black women and women with a high number of recent life disruptions are more likely than their counterparts to get second-trimester abortions, a new study finds.

The research focuses on a relatively small group of American women, those who end pregnancies after the first trimester, which lasts 12 weeks. As of 2006, 88 percent of abortions occurred before the end of the first trimester, making second-trimester abortions relatively rare. These later abortions, however, are more expensive, more difficult to come by, and carry more medical risk than earlier procedures, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research organization.

There is no medical definition for when an abortion becomes "late term," though many sources place the line at after the 20th week of gestation. According to Planned Parenthood, medical risks from abortion such as an incomplete abortion, infection, or injury to the cervix or other organs increase the longer a pregnancy continues. Until 20 weeks gestation, the risk of death to the mother from childbirth is 11 times greater than the risk of death from an abortion. But after 20 weeks, the risk from abortion and childbirth are about the same.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) keeps some data on second-trimester abortions, but the only demographic information available from those records is age and race. According to the CDC, teens, black women and Hispanic women are more likely than older adults or other races to get second-trimester abortions — but that data is limited. 

Second-trimester abortions

To get more comprehensive information, Guttmacher Institute researchers surveyed 9,493 abortion patients at 95 hospitals and clinics across the country in 2008, weighting the data to create a nationally representative sample of abortion patients. They queried the women on demographic factors like race, poverty, education and marital status, as well as asking them about domestic violence, health insurance, and recent disruptive life events, including unemployment, serious medical problems and death or illness among friends and family.

They then focused on women who had abortions after 13 weeks. Within that group, they compared women who had 13-to-15-week abortions with those who had abortions after 16 weeks.

"We kept seeing all these discussions of second-trimester abortions and attempts to limit abortions by trimester," Guttmacher senior research associate Rachel Jones told Live Science. "It dawned on us that we didn't know anything about this population."

Of all women surveyed, 10.3 percent had abortions after the first trimester. These women were more likely to be young, black, less educated and living in poverty than women who had earlier abortions. They were also more likely to have experienced violence at the hands of the man who got them pregnant and to have dealt with at least three serious life events in the last year.

Compared with the 10.3 percent overall number, 14 percent of patients under age 18 had second-trimester abortions, as did 13.8 percent of adolescents ages 18 to 19. Among all ages, 13.4 percent of black abortion patients had second-trimester procedures, compared with 8.5 percent of white abortion patients and 9.9 percent of Hispanic abortion patients. [5 Myths About Women's Bodies]

Of abortion patients without high-school diplomas, 13.1 percent had second-trimester abortions, a proportion that decreased with education. Of college-graduate abortion patients, only 5.8 percent had late abortions. A lack of education may mean that patients are less health-literate, and thus less likely to figure out how to access an abortion until later in pregnancy, the researchers wrote in their report released today (Dec. 16) and to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Contraception.

Living under the poverty line also increased the chances of a later-term abortion, with 12.6 percent of abortion patients living in poverty getting second-trimester procedures. The rate of second-trimester abortions dropped to 7.7 percent among women earning at least twice as much as poverty levels.

Abortion access

Physical abuse or rape by a partner increased the likelihood of later abortion, with 13.7 percent of abortion patients who'd experienced second-trimester procedures (compared with 10 percent of women who hadn't). Other disruptive life events — loss of a job or a partner, for example — were likewise linked to later abortions. Of abortion patients who'd experienced three disruptive events in the last year, 14.8 percent got later-term abortions.

Experiencing disruptive events may prevent women from noticing their pregnancy early enough to get a first-trimester abortion, the researchers wrote in their report. Life chaos may also prevent women from accessing an abortion early. Alternatively, some women may have planned to continue their pregnancies until their circumstances changed, forcing them to seek an abortion later rather than earlier.

Using health insurance to pay for an abortion was also linked with later procedures. Slightly more than 13 percent of women on private insurance or Medicaid got second-trimester procedures compared with 8.2 percent of women paying out-of-pocket.

The overrepresentation of health insurance payers among women getting second-trimester abortions could be because the procedure is expensive, Jones said, and thus only women with insurance can afford it. Additionally, she said, most women who get first-trimester abortions pay out of pocket because they don't want the abortion to appear on their health insurance records. For the more expensive second-trimester procedure, women might give up that confidentiality in order to secure the money for the surgery.

For women who got abortions after 16 weeks of pregnancy, later in the second term, age and education were not factors. Black women, however, were still more likely than other races to get abortions this late. Wealthier women and women paying with insurance were also more likely to get abortions after 16 weeks, likely again because of the prohibitive cost of the procedures.

The majority of patients who had second-trimester abortions indicated they would have preferred to have them earlier, the researchers reported. While later abortions are unlikely to be eliminated — for example in cases where women find out about fetal anomalies late in the pregnancy — they could be reduced, Jone said.

"Prior research has found that things like finding an abortion provider, making arrangements and tracking down the money are barriers," she said. "If we remove these barriers to first-trimester abortion services, this could potentially decrease the need for second-trimester abortion services."

The full report is available as a PDF online.

Editor's note: This article was updated on August 3, 2022 by Live Science contributor Alice Ball following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Editor's note: As of August 17, 2022, the constitutional right to abortion has been eliminated in the U.S., following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. The following article was published on Nov 11, 2011, and therefore the legal information is no longer accurate. 

The failure of Mississippi voters to pass a law declaring fertilized eggs full persons has been heralded as both a victory for abortion rights and an inspiration for anti-abortion activists to fight harder. No one seems to think the failure of Proposition 26 will dampen the abortion-rights debate.

In fact, it likely won't. Political scientists say that Americans' attitudes toward abortion have remained remarkably stable in the decades since the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. And while these attitudes embrace gray areas far more than the political rhetoric around abortion, political scientists don't expect an end of the debate.

"As long as there are really vocal minorities that regard [abortion] as the most important issue in our lifetime, and some of them do, there will be attempts to get it on the agenda," said Morris Fiorina, a political scientist and senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Nuanced views

A quick glance at polls about abortion seems to suggest a country stalemated. In 2009, the Pew Research Center found that 45 percent of Americans said that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, compared with 47 percent who believe it should be legal in most or all cases. But that "most or all" phrasing covers a lot of ground. And, Fiorina said, Americans tend to say abortion is immoral while still supporting Roe v. Wade.

"This is the sort of thing that drives social conservatives crazy, that people can say on the one hand, 'It wouldn’t be right for me,' but on the other hand, 'I don't want to elevate that into law,'" Fiorina said. "Most Americans are troubled. They think there are too many abortions, but they don't want to make it illegal."

In fact, attitudes about abortion have been "remarkably stable" since the 1970s, said Ted G. Jelen, a professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

According to the survey organization American National Election Studies (ANES), 15 percent of Americans in 2008 said abortions should never be permitted, only a slight creep up from the 11 percent who said the same in 1972, before Roe v. Wade. Other categories are tougher to compare because the phrasing of the survey questions changed over the years. But between 1972 and 1980, when the survey questions remained the same, the numbers barely budged: Between 43 percent and 46 percent of people said abortion should be allowed in the case of danger to the mother's life or health; between 16 percent and 18 percent said abortion should be allowed if a woman would have "personal difficulty" having a child; and between 24 percent and 27 percent said abortion should always be permitted.

Likewise, the numbers stood firm between 1980 and 2008, when a second set of survey questions were asked. Support for abortion's legality in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life or health wavered between 27 percent and 33 percent. Support for legal abortion in a case of "clear need" beyond rape, incest or health varied from as low as 14 percent in the mid-1990s to 18 percent or 19 percent in the 1980s and 2000s. And legal abortion "always as a personal choice" captured between 35 percent and 40 percent of the support.

The stability of abortion attitudes is surprising, Jelen told LiveScience, because certain personal characteristics associated with a pro-choice viewpoint are on the rise, but pro-choice attitudes are not.  Among those characteristics are more women working outside the home, Jelen said, as well as fewer Americans with religious affiliations.

"You have a number of people you would expect to be more permissive toward legal abortion who don't seem to be," Jelen said.

Stubborn numbers

The driving force behind the stubborn numbers may be the rhetoric of both sides of the abortion debate, Jelen said.

"Both sides of the abortion debate seem to be able to cast themselves in terms of rights," Jelen said. "Americans like rights."

Anti-abortion activists talk about the right of the fetus to life, he said, while abortion rights activists focus on the right of women to make autonomous reproductive choices. That makes the abortion debate very different from another cultural touchstone, the gay rights debate, wherein supporters of gay marriage talk about the right to marry, but the opposition has not made similar rights-based arguments, Jelen said.

Meanwhile, Jelen said, anti-abortion activists have sharpened their message, perhaps winning over non-religious people and others who wouldn't normally oppose abortion. The "partial-birth" abortion debates of the 1990s, for example, focused on a rare procedure, banned in 2003, called intact dilation and extraction in which a fetus is partially removed from the uterus and its skull collapsed to complete the abortion. A small downtick in abortion support during the 1990s may be because of the partial-birth abortion debate, Fiorina said.

Finally, Jelen said, abortion has become a magnet for political polarization, meaning that strict abortion rights proponents and strict opponents are the ones who make it to office.

"You're never going to see any of the Republican candidates for president taking a pro-choice position, even if they don't like the government doing other things," Jelen said.

The future of the abortion debate

Both Fiorina and Jelen agree that the abortion issue isn't going anywhere, Proposition 26's failure in Mississippi notwithstanding. Personhood USA, the group behind the proposed amendment, is pushing to try similar propositions in other states, including Florida and Ohio.

Polls suggest that Americans, while conflicted over abortion, "don't want to make a big move in either direction," Fiorina said. Some demographic changes, including more women who have grown up in an entirely post-Roe era, could mean the issue recedes in importance over another generation, but it's unlikely that there will be an America without an abortion debate anytime soon, he said.

As long as intense pro-life areas such as South Carolina and Iowa are important to presidential primaries, the politicalization of abortion is here to stay, Jelen agreed. America's religiosity and American's stalemate on the rights of the fetus versus the rights of the mother make us different from other countries that have managed to put the abortion issue to bed, he said.

"People are certainly going to keep trying," Jelen said. "There is an activist wing that truly does equate abortion with mass murder and genocide. They're not very numerous, but they're pretty active, and that's not going to go away."

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

This article was updated on August 17, 2022 by Live Science contributor Alice Ball following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. This decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that was established by the 1973 court case and later affirmed by a 1992 case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.