Editor’s note: Abortion remains legal in Utah up to 18 weeks, with some exceptions after that limit.
In June of 2022, Utah’s Legislature chose to engage in risky and impulsive abortion restrictions. It can be hard to resist arousing legislative opportunities in the heat of the moment, but rash actions have long-term consequences.
One year after the conception of Dobbs, Utah is now finally starting to birth the children conceived under its anti-abortion legislation.
One of the first and most pressing consequences of Utah’s anti-abortion legislation is a drastic increase in child poverty. Considering that 3 out of 4 women list financial hardship as their primary reason for seeking an abortion, it is now a fact that more Utah babies will be born into low-income households. So far, our state has done little to mitigate these effects. Notably, Utah still abides by the $7.25/hour federal minimum wage, has rigid family leave laws, poor housing services, no universal pre-K, ranks poorly in education, has minimal child tax credit and has few accessible child care services.
In addition to higher childhood poverty rates, the state of Utah should plan to see an increase in all the social and structural correlates of poverty, like increased need for food assistance, Medicaid assistance, mental health assistance, foster care placements and transportation; larger caseloads for social workers and K-12 class sizes; and higher rates of high school dropout, family violence, unemployment, bankruptcy and maternal death rates.
Unfortunately, this list isn’t even close to exhaustive. You don’t need to be an expert to see what a sharp increase in the number of babies born into poverty each year will do to Utah’s state budget. The number of tax dollars spent to support post-Dobbs generations will exceed previous spending.
In the various areas of social science, there are decades of research that agree that there is no single human experience that is as unilaterally detrimental for child health and development as poverty and its associated consequences, including lack of housing, lack of education, compromised brain development, compromised social development and compromised health care.
Experiencing poverty as a child and beyond can have severe lasting impact on relatively all aspects of development, like physical health, emotional health and social relationships. If Utah legislators want to pass “pro-life” reproductive policy, they must also pass supplementary policy that protects life once it is born.
Thankfully for Utah’s legislators, the public policy solution to supporting their post-Dobbs generations is simple: Spend more money on Utah families raising children. There is ample data showing that simply increasing household income has positive, multifaceted rewards for child development. For example, one recent study showed that substantial increases to a struggling mother’s household income may directly benefit their child’s brain development in as little as one year. Additionally, we can see similar trends by looking at the history of the child tax credit. It is clear that as the child tax credit increases, so do children’s test scores.
Some legislators may argue against “throwing money” at socio-economic issues. However, the data is clear: When poverty is the problem, funding families is the solution.
Providing for Utah’s low-income families’ basic needs — like food, transportation, shelter and health care — is the surest, evidence-based way to offset the tsunami of consequences that will characterize Utah’s post-Dobbs generations.
As Utah legislators plan for its 2024 legislative session, they must consider the generational storm of child poverty needs in the state. Legislators must immediately and aggressively act to shift economic resources to the families that will be needing it the most.
If Utah’s “pro-life” legislators remove reproductive rights that assist its families, at minimum they must create an environment that is economically feasible to raise a child.
Katie Wyant-Stein
Katie Wyant-Stein is a developmental psychology Ph.D. student at the University of Utah. She investigates how public policy shapes child development outcomes.