After Abortion Bans, Infant Mortality and Births Increased, Research Finds [nytimes.com]

^{Anti-abortion activists rallying in front of the Supreme Court in 2022.Credit...Shawn Thew/EPA, via Shutterstock}

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The findings showed the highest mortality occurred among infants who were Black, lived in Southern states or had fetal birth defects.

By Pam Belluck, The New York Times, Image: Shawn Thew/EPA via Shutterstock, February 13, 2025

Infant mortality increased along with births in most states with abortion bans in the first 18 months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, according to new research.

The findings, in two studies published Thursday in the journal JAMA, also suggest that abortion bans can have the most significant effects on people who are struggling economically or who are in other types of challenging circumstances, health policy experts said.

“The groups that are most likely to have children as a result of abortion bans are also individuals who are most likely, for a number of different reasons, to have higher rates of infant mortality,” said Alyssa Bilinski, a professor of health policy at Brown University, who was not involved in the research.

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