Number of Abandoned Babies in Texas Doubled Over the Last 10 Years

In 2024, at least 18 babies have been abandoned across the state of Texas, according to the Washington Post’s tracking in a new report this week. That’s more than double the number of infants (seven) abandoned in the state a decade ago, the report says. Some of the abandoned babies are found alive; some are found dead.

In Houston, police identified a parent in four out of six abandoned baby cases. Only one—an 18-year-old immigrant from Guatemala—was charged with felony child abandonment earlier this month, per the Post. The young woman told officials she gave birth outside a dumpster because she feared that if she went to a clinic or hospital, she could face deportation proceedings.

Blake Rocap, a lawyer with the Sissy Farenthold Reproductive Justice Defense Project at the University of Texas at Austin, told the outlet he attributes this surge in abandoned babies to a range of “intersectional” causes—including the state’s total abortion ban, lacking access to prenatal care and insurance coverage, and concerns about deportation. 

The total ban means that more people will be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies and birth children they can’t care for. Then, there’s “abysmal” access to prenatal care, “particularly for people without private insurance, particularly for people without immigration status.” A research organization called Commonwealth Fund ranks Texas next to last in the nation for women’s health and access to reproductive care. Per the organization’s research, Texas has a higher rate of women without health insurance than any other state.

“No matter the circumstances, desperation is a common thread,” the Post wrote of the abandonment cases it tracked.

The outlet stressed that despite the state’s record $32.7 billion budget surplus, lawmakers have declined to invest state funding in awareness campaigns about the state’s safe haven law. This law, like others in states across the country, allows parents to relinquish unharmed newborns up to 60 days old to designated locations, typically attached to fire stations, across the country. Installing these climate-controlled boxes, which also include silent alarms to alert first responders, costs about $20,000 per box.

But state funding has largely been siphoned off to anti-abortion centers, or “crisis pregnancy centers,” across the state. Most of these centers offer no medical services—just disinformation to convince likely abortion seekers to not have the procedure. Texas allocated $165 million to CPCs this fiscal year. In July, ProPublica reported that state funding for CPCs had ballooned from $5 million in 2005 to $140 million this year and that egregious misuse of funds and even alleged fraud were rampant among these organizations.

While a range of policy failures in the ostensibly “pro-life” state are contributing to the increase in abandoned newborns, this seemingly joins a growing list of devastating consequences to Texas’ abortion ban. Earlier this year, the Gender Equity Policy Institute reported a 56% increase in state maternal deaths between 2019 and 2022, compared to an 11% increase nationwide in the same period. “All the research points to Texas’ abortion ban [SB 8, which took effect in September 2021] as the primary driver of this alarming increase,” the organization said. The state’s abortion laws and health care landscape, writ large, are jeopardizing the safety of pregnant people and newborns alike.