New research has found that since abortion protections were removed with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, more women are choosing to have their tubes tied.
The research letter was published in JAMA on Wednesday and examined insurance claims data from 2021 and 2022 for nearly 4.8 million women who got tubal ligations, a surgery that closes the fallopian tubes of a patient to stop them from getting pregnant.
The data came from 36 states and Washington, D.C. Researchers organized it then by places that had “banned,” “limited,” or “protected” abortion policies.
In the year and a half before the Dobbs decision, tubal ligations remained stable in all three groups, but in the last 6 months of 2022, after Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, the procedure rose in all three groups.
In banned states, researchers found that tubal ligations rose by 3% each month after June 2022.
The research letter adds to previous findings that found there was a rise in sterilization procedures following the Dobbs decision. One of these studies, published in JAMA Health Forum, found that after Dobbs, there was an abrupt increase in vasectomies among men and tubal ligations among women ages 18 to 30.
Xiao Xu, the lead author of the research letter and associate professor of reproductive sciences at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, says the findings from their research were “not entirely surprising.”
When more data becomes available, Xu said that her team is looking to expand their research and find out how the trend progressed.