Population Institute Tenth Annual Report Card On U.S. Reproductive Health & Rights Posts Worst Grades Yet, Capping a Decade of Decline

WASHINGTON, March 4, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Population Institute (PI) released its tenth annual 50 State Report Card on Reproductive Health and Rights, which tracks multiple indicators of reproductive health and rights, including access to family planning, sex education, and abortion services.

This year's grades are the worst yet and reflect how far the gap between states prioritizing reproductive health and rights and those seeking to eliminate them has widened over the last decade.

Since the first PI Report Card was issued in 2013, the overall grade for the U.S. nationally dropped from a C- to an F, and the number of failing states grew from nine the first year to 25 this year. Six states got "A"s.  Separate report cards for each state are posted here.

Last year Texas passed S.B. 8, a six-week abortion ban, in which the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene. It allows anyone in the U.S. to sue Texas abortion providers and anyone who assist patients in receiving an abortion. 

S.B. 8 is a bellwether for national reproductive rights for two reasons:  First, one in 10 women of reproductive age in the U.S. live in Texas, and today they are effectively already denied the right to abortion care guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. Second, legislatures in 11 states are working on abortion bans similar to the Texas law, and more could follow suit even extending beyond abortion into other attacks on bodily autonomy like trans rights.

This week, six months after SB8 took effect, the Senate blocked passage of the Women's Health Protection Act, a bill that would have protected the right to abortion free from medically unnecessary restrictions.

"At a stroke, SB8 stopped the people of Texas from exercising their right to basic reproductive health care, and effectively overturned Roe v. Wade for 1 in 10 women of reproductive age in the United States," wrote Population Institute public policy director Jennie Wetter in Newsweek this week. "Now, in the absence of a federal law protecting those rights, people in many other states may soon share the same predicament.  This comes at a time when the U.S. is already failing in reproductive health and rights. This year's grades were the worst in the report card's 10-year history."

Contact: Stephen Kent, [email protected] 914-589-5988

SOURCE Population Institute