According to a new investigation, the Supreme Court was Roev. After overturning Wade, it increased with infant mortality in most states where abortion is prohibited after the first 18 months.
Two studies published Thursday in JAMA also suggest that abortion bans could have the most important impact on people struggling financially or in other types of difficult situations It is, health policy experts said.
“The group that is most likely to have children as a result of an abortion ban are also the individuals who are most likely to have a high infant mortality rate for many different reasons,” Brown University, which was not involved in the study.
Overall, infant mortality rates were 6% higher than expected in states that implemented abortion bans, said Demographics and Perinatal Epidemiologists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School's Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health. One of the researchers said. Public health. The number increases in nine states, decreases in four, and does not change in one.
Dr. Gemmill said that among non-Hispanic black infants, the mortality rate was 11% higher after the abortion ban came into effect than expected. In addition, more and more babies were born with congenital congenital deficiency. This is a situation in which a woman was able to end her pregnancy due to abortion ban.
Overall, researchers have implemented a nearly abortion ban or ban after six weeks of pregnancy during that period, 478 babies died in the first year of their lifetime than expected. I discovered that there was. Based on data from the previous year.
Increased fertility rates were higher in communities with socioeconomic disadvantages and in states with worst maternal and child health outcomes.
“What happens when you ban abortion is creating a great inequality in access to abortion,” says Middlebury College, who studied similar abortion data but was not involved in new research. Caitlyn Myers said.
This study evaluated data from birth certificates and census records for all 50 states from January 2012 to December 2023. That timeframe allowed us to compare trends in birth and infant mortality several years before the Supreme Court overturned the national rights of abortion. There is data in June 2022, 18 months from now.
At the time, 14 states had banned or banned abortions at about the same time after six weeks of pregnancy during that period. Now 16 has it.
Domestic data shows that overall abortion rates have actually increased since the Supreme Court's ruling, due to factors such as telehealth and out-of-state travel, but that required abortion, or That doesn't mean that everyone who wants can get it. Myers said.
She said the study showed that two dynamics lie behind the increased infant mortality rate. One aspect is that if a woman is not permitted to end a fetal pregnancy with a congenital abnormality, the baby often dies within days or weeks of birth.
Another aspect is that women who cannot get an abortion by traveling to other states or ordering pills in the mail are likely to be “poor and likely have women of color, and they “The population is infants with high maternal morbidity and mortality,” Dr. Myers said.
Much of the overall increase was driven by Texas data, said Suzanne Bell, a professor in the same department at Johns Hopkins, was Dr. Gemmill. Dr. Bell said that of the additional 478 infant deaths, all but 94, are in Texas.
Texas infant mortality rates were 9.4% higher than expected abortion ban, the study found. In eight other states with bans that showed an increase, their rates ranged from a 1.3% increase in Mississippi to an 8.6% increase in Kentucky.
Researchers say that Texas' dominant influence was the fact that in September 2021, roughly nine months before the Supreme Court's DOBBS decision, Texas implemented a strict abortion ban six weeks after pregnancy. This is partly due to. Before that, a relatively high percentage of Texan women seeking abortions were able to obtain them from the health care provider there, but bans, clinics and other abortions, The service was shut down and the fact that it was to force women to travel. A long distance across that vast state.
In many other states, there were already few abortion providers before the ban, so women “we either had already traveled out of state or were unable to get an abortion,” Dr. Bell said.
Five states that were banned showed no higher than expected infant mortality rates. In Louisiana, the rates remained unchanged. The proportions fell in Idaho, Missouri, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Researchers said it is most likely that neighboring countries, including Illinois, Washington and Maryland, are offering extended access to abortion.
He further said that the demographics and relatively low socioeconomic status of most residents in the southern states contributed to higher infant mortality and higher birth rates following the ban on abortion.
“These results have a very long-standing disparity shaped by state policies,” Dr. Gemmill said.
Opponents of abortion said there was another interpretation of the data.
“All of these 'excessive' children born would have been killed in induced abortions,” said Dr. Donna Harrison, research director for the American Association of Life and Gynecology. “This means that those who lament the findings of this study are not really worried about these babies being killed. Rather, they hope that they were killed early: the uterus. in.”
Analyses of birth data showed that in states with abortion bans, the birth rate per 1,000 people in reproductive age increases by 1.7% compared to what historical data would expect.
“A 1.7% change in fertility may not seem like a big deal, but it's actually a very big deal,” Dr. Gemmill said. She said demographers consider this increase to be extremely important, higher than the 1.4% increase in fertility rates associated with the community's pandemic.
In states with abortion bans, if that increases, it translated to 22,180 births than expected, the researchers said.
Dr. Bilinsky, who wrote an editorial for the study, said the findings presented opportunities to nuclearize efforts to improve the support system and funding of pregnant women and babies.
“These papers are not intended to resolve differences in abortion in this country,” she said. “I think people have very different reactions when they see these papers, especially the results about fertility.”
But no one supports the death of a toddler. “We should want to prevent infant deaths, and in many cases infant mortality is preventable,” she said. She added: method. “
Dr. Bilinski said the findings underscore the need for policies and programs such as Medicaid, child tax credits, parental leave and affordable childcare.
“I hope that seeing these results, as a country, we can agree with everything that these children and families should have an opportunity to flourish.”
