Politics

New data from Texas shows a possible consequence of abortion bans: a rise in infant mortality.

In 2022, the year after the state’s six-week abortion ban took effect, deaths of infants before their first birthdays increased 13 percent, an analysis published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics showed.

The increase was driven by congenital defects or chromosomal abnormalities, it found. The number of babies with such conditions who died rose 23 percent in that period, compared with a 3 percent decrease in the rest of the country.

Fatal fetal anomalies include trisomy 18 or conditions in which fetuses are missing kidneys or parts of the brain. Many are not discovered until the anatomy ultrasound at roughly 20 weeks of pregnancy, well after the gestational age limit in Texas’ abortion ban.

The results “suggest that additional live births occurring in Texas in 2022 disproportionately included pregnancies at increased risk of infant mortality, particularly those involving congenital anomalies,” the study’s authors wrote.

The period of the study did not include most babies born after Dobbs, the Supreme Court decision in June 2022 that ended the constitutional right to abortion. Seventeen states now have total bans or six-week bans, and most do not have exceptions for fatal fetal anomalies.

It takes a long time for complete data on births and deaths to be released, so it is too early to know much about the effect of these bans on infant mortality. But the new study adds to research on earlier bans showing a link to increases in infant deaths, births with chromosomal abnormalities, and maternal health complications.

The new analysis “is a provocative finding that should be taken seriously,” said Charles Stoecker, a health economist at Tulane and an author of another study linking abortion restrictions and infant deaths. “It’s not fully convincing alone, but there is an emerging body of evidence that show that these abortion restrictions have serious negative consequences for infant mortality.”

Women who end their pregnancies because of maternal or fetal health complications have become a focus of the abortion debate.

In a case that drew national attention last year, a Texas woman, Kate Cox, had her fetus diagnosed with a fatal chromosomal abnormality, and she traveled out of state for an abortion after the Texas Supreme Court stopped her from having the procedure. In a ruling on an Idaho case Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily cleared women in the state to receive an emergency abortion when their health is at risk, but did not rule on the substance of the case.

Abortion opponents say that fetuses, regardless of a fatal diagnosis, “deserve every chance at life,” said Amy O’Donnell, the communications director for Texas Alliance for Life.

“It is heart-wrenching for any parent to lose a child, and our sympathies go out to families who have experienced such loss,” she said. “Nevertheless, no disease, disability or disorder justifies abortion.”

In 2022, the year of focus for the study, infant mortality increased nationwide by 2 percent, after decreases since 1995. Researchers are not sure why, but they say the pandemic may have played a role — because of infection, stress or fewer doctor visits. Also, the United States has had declining maternity care in some places, especially for complicated pregnancies.

But in Texas, the number of infants who died increased significantly more — 2,240 infants died, 255 more than in 2021, an increase of 13 percent.

About one-fifth of infant deaths in the United States are because of congenital defects. In Texas in 2022, one-fourth were, the researchers found, using federal death certificate data.

Data shows that most women with fatal diagnoses choose to terminate their pregnancies.

“As a doctor, these moments are both haunting and heartbreaking,” said Dr. Maria Isabel Rodriguez, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Oregon Health and Science University who researches reproductive health policy. “In a post-Roe America, options depend on where a person lives and what their resources are.”

The authors of the new study hypothesized that other factors might have contributed to the rise in infant deaths in Texas, such as financial or emotional stress among women with unintended pregnancies.

Infant deaths because of maternal pregnancy complications increased 18 percent in Texas, compared with 8 percent in the rest of the United States. The study did not have detail on these complications, but in general, maternal health issues are a main cause of fetal or infant mortality. Although state abortion bans have exceptions for the life of the mother, they do not necessarily have health exceptions.

The data did not include women’s income or race. Overall, Black babies have a higher infant mortality rate than among other large groups.

As more data becomes available, the ramifications of abortion bans will become clearer, said Suzanne Bell, an author of the study and an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins: “We’re starting to see more evidence of the downstream effects of those policies.”

Josh Katz contributed reporting.

With his poll numbers dropping and Democrats writing off his candidacy, Joseph R. Biden Jr. sat down with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News in the hope that a major TV interview could help revive a presidential campaign that appeared all but finished.

The date was Feb. 9, 2020. Mr. Biden would finish fifth in the New Hampshire primary two days later — but he then staged a remarkable comeback, soaring back to win South Carolina and ultimately fighting his way to the presidency.

Four and a half years later, as Mr. Biden faces mounting calls to withdraw from the presidential race, he and his advisers are once again gambling on an anchor who has interviewed him at some of the most dire moments of his political career.

Mr. Stephanopoulos’s high-stakes interview on Friday with Mr. Biden is set to be taped in the afternoon in Madison, Wis., and broadcast in its entirety at 8 p.m. Eastern. It is widely viewed as the president’s best hope to quiet the cascading alarm over his mental and physical fitness in the wake of a cataclysmic performance at last week’s debate against former President Donald J. Trump.

Friday’s interview is likely to last between 15 and 25 minutes, according to three people familiar with the negotiations, who requested anonymity to share details of private discussions between ABC and Mr. Biden’s aides. While presidential advisers routinely haggle over the framework for any major interview, the exact length often depends on what transpires during the taping. Mr. Biden could extend the interview of his own accord, or Mr. Stephanopoulos might press for more time to ask additional questions.

ABC has pledged to air the interview in full and without edits, meaning that any attempt by a Biden aide to cut off the conversation early would be captured by cameras and likely shown to viewers. The prime-time special, “One on One with President Biden,” has been previewed to affiliates as lasting for 30 minutes, but it could be extended.

The plan for the interview began to come together late Tuesday morning, when Mr. Stephanopoulos received a text message from Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, according to a person familiar with the sequence of events. Mr. Biden’s team wanted to know if the anchor would be up for sitting down with the president.

ABC was chosen by the White House in part because it has a large viewership compared with competitors, and also because it is widely considered a nonpartisan news outlet, according to another person familiar with the Biden team’s strategy.

ABC’s “World News Tonight,” which will air the first clips from the interview at 6:30 p.m. Eastern on Friday, is the highest-rated evening newscast, beating NBC and CBS. ABC also recorded the highest debate viewership of the three big broadcast networks, nearly equaling the audience of the debate’s host, CNN.

Mr. Biden is also well acquainted with Mr. Stephanopoulos, who has conducted dozens of interviews with him throughout his career as a senator, as vice president and finally as president. Mr. Stephanopoulos last interviewed Mr. Biden at the White House in August 2021, when the president faced intense criticism in the aftermath of the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Now Mr. Stephanopoulos, a star anchor and a former Democratic strategist who helped oversee Bill Clinton’s messaging in the 1990s, has the delicate task of pressing the commander in chief on intimate questions of aging, physical decline and what exactly transpired under the lights of the debate stage, where Mr. Biden repeatedly lost his train of thought, stared agape at his opponent and struggled to convey simple political arguments.

Mr. Stephanopoulos has spent the last few days preparing for the interview before he flies to Wisconsin, where Mr. Biden is making a campaign stop on Friday. The executive producer of “Good Morning America,” Simone Swink, and the political director of ABC News, Rick Klein, are expected to be present for the taping, according to one person familiar with the plans.

Mr. Stephanopoulos, who joined ABC in 1997, will inevitably face scrutiny of his own. Will his questions be viewed as too soft and sympathetic, or too harsh and callous? What level of candor will he be able to elicit from Mr. Biden in the time allotted?

Already, some right-wing websites have peddled conspiracy theories that, because the interview is not airing live, ABC could selectively edit and reframe Mr. Biden’s answers. ABC initially said that it would air the interview in full on Sunday morning’s episode of “This Week.” But hours later, the network changed course, announcing that the unedited interview would air on Friday in prime-time instead.

ABC informed the Biden camp of that decision on Tuesday and received no objections, two of the people familiar with the discussions said.

Fans of “Jeopardy! Masters” may be out of luck: ABC’s corporate parent, the Walt Disney Company, agreed to interrupt a rerun of the game show on Friday night to accommodate the prime-time airing of the interview.

Katie Rogers contributed reporting.