New polling shows that a third of young women say they or someone they know has decided not to get pregnant because of concerns about maternal health care after Dobbs.

Polling conducted in August by All In Together, in partnership with polling firm Echelon Insights found that 34 percent of women aged 18-39 said they or someone they know personally has “decided not to get pregnant due to concerns about managing pregnancy-related medical emergencies.” Put another way, poor or unavailable maternal health care post-Dobbs is leading people to alter some of their most important life choices.

For young people, the maternal healthcare crisis is deeply personal. More than a third of young people and 22 percent of young women say they have personally dealt with or know someone who has “faced constraints when trying to manage a pregnancy-related emergency.” And 23 percent of 18- to 39-year-old women say they have themselves or know someone else who has been unable to obtain an abortion in their state — a number almost three times higher than respondents in other age groups.

Perhaps most surprisingly however, these results are similar regardless of whether the respondents are living in states with abortion bans or states without restrictions on abortion access. The consistency between red and blue states suggests that the statistics on maternal mortality and the stories and struggles of women navigating the new normal on abortion access have penetrated the psyche of young people everywhere. The Dobbs decision, it seems, has fundamentally altered how people feel about having families and the calculus for getting pregnant.

In the wake of Dobbs, stories of women enduring horrific medical trauma in states where abortion is illegal have been widely reported. For instance, Carmen Broesder, an Idaho mom, documented her 19-day long harrowing miscarriage on TikTok – including her three trips to the emergency room. While only six weeks pregnant, she was denied access to a D&C (dilation and curettage) surgery because of Idaho’s abortion ban.

It goes almost without saying that this is not good news for the already declining birthrates in the U.S. According to research from Pew, birthrates in the U.S. had been falling since the early 2000s and plummeted during the Covid pandemic. Fertility rates briefly rebounded after the pandemic but now, post-Dobbs, they have dropped again.

  • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
    901·
    11 months ago

    Late last year, I arranged to get a vasectomy because my wife is amazing, and I don’t want to put her through a pregnancy in my state. The urologist who performed the surgery said there had been a significant uptick in the amount of vasectomies he had scheduled because of the recent abortion ruling.

    • canuckkat@lemmy.world
      42·
      11 months ago

      I’d still recommend a condom, not just for STIs but also because vasectomies are not 100%.

      Just ask my brother who got one and his wife is now expecting in December.

        • Jax@sh.itjust.works
          3·
          11 months ago

          This kind of shit is the reason antibiotic resistant bacteria is on the rise.

          When a doctor tells you to do something after treating you, fucking do it.

          • canuckkat@lemmy.world
            11·
            11 months ago

            Pretty sure 3 years is a long enough wait after the surgery lmao. He did get the all clear from his doctor and he hadn’t even met his wife at the time.

        • canuckkat@lemmy.world
          12·
          11 months ago

          He got his 3 years before he ever met his now wife so he did get the all clear from his doctor to not use barriers to prevent pregnancy.

      • onionbaggage@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
        2·
        11 months ago

        Well, I only fuck my wife so if I get an STI then at least I learned something important, and my count is 0 so if she gets pregnant very likely ditto.

        • canuckkat@lemmy.world
          1·
          11 months ago

          Sure. Just abort. Because it’s not at all traumatizing for his wife to get an abortion… Abortions are so easy on the body.

    • littlewonder@lemmy.world
      16·
      11 months ago

      I did as well AND my partner already has a vasectomy.

      I live in a state that’s scary-close to fucking with abortions and I am not about to mess with an abortion in this atmosphere if his vas deferens is the tiny percent that regrows together. Not to mention that no human is immune to sexual assault :/

      Goddamn, I was so mad that I felt forced to do that.

      • EssentialCoffee@midwest.socialEnglish
        4·
        11 months ago

        I went for a bilateral salpingectomy because I figured if they came after the pill, they were coming after IUDs too.

        IUDs still need to come out at some point. That’s care that could be denied because of laws.

  • Ataraxia@sh.itjust.works
    143·
    11 months ago

    I mean the unintentional result was soooo badly needed. Everyone should have access to abortion but I’m glad people have the education and understanding to chose life over unwanted pregnancy and possible death.

  • Rufus Q. Bodine III@lemmy.worldEnglish
    415·
    11 months ago

    When I see articles that include, “goes almost without saying…”, that triggers by ‘AI generated article’ alert.

        • prole@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          7·
          11 months ago

          Funny, I’ve seen your username a lot the past couple of days, and without fail, you’re making braindead comments like these. Is this your job? Do you have a job? Are you old enough to have a job?

          Normally, in a good faith discussion, I’d ask the person what their issues are with the term “chilling effect.” Something that we’ve witnessed countless times throughout history.

          But since you’re clearly allergic to concept of good faith, I’m not going to bother.

  • bioemerl@kbin.social
    637·
    11 months ago

    Seems flawed at first glance since it doesn’t look at pre and post roe answers. Birth rates have been on the fall for ages.

    • Chetzemoka@kbin.social
      38·
      11 months ago

      “Women are specifically stating that the direct reason they’re choosing to delay pregnancy is the fall of Roe creating emergency health concerns.”

      “I dunno, are you sure you can believe what women say? Did you check the “real” data?”

      • bioemerl@kbin.social
        531·
        11 months ago

        I do not believe what people say, no, because people are very often full of shit and data should almost always rely on cause and effect, not opinion polls.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
          171·
          11 months ago

          What people say is the basis for doing further research. It’s how we find out cause and effect in the first place!

            • bustrpoindextr@lemmy.world
              5·
              11 months ago

              To what end? Should we not publish studies that require additional research? If we don’t publish those how will others in the field know to investigate certain areas?

              I mean, if you honestly don’t want things published until we know all the facts, then science and research will honestly grind to a halt.

              That’s how this shit works … Small, iterative steps. It’s slow, it’s not sexy, but it’s worked for thousands of years.