Infant mortality rises in US states with abortion bans

[IwantToRetire]

Researchers estimate there were 478 infant deaths across 14 states which have outright bans or heavy restrictions - which they say would not have occurred had the laws not been in place.

The rise comes after the US Supreme Court reversed a ruling in 2022 that made abortion up to foetal viability a national right, allowing individual states to decide on whether to allow the procedure.

Alison Gemmill, co-leader of the study, said "restrictive abortion policies" could be "reversing decades of progress" in reducing infant deaths across the US.

The study, published this week by researchers, external from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, found an increase in mortality rates for babies born with congenital issues, as well as among groups where death rates already were higher than average.

This included black infants, as well as for babies whose parents were unmarried, younger, did not attend college, and for those living in southern states.

Full article at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8d9z853jndo

I wonder if the rates of children put into care at birth have also gone up? You would assume so.

Oh it definitely won’t have gone up at all! All those kind caring men in charge of this and all those people with their pro life banners will obviously be taking in all the babies born due to abortion not being available…..

And the US already ranked 33 of 38 OECD countries. Already shockingly poor. Maybe they can make 38 of 38 if they array on.

You'd think all those people who care sooooo much about babies would focus on that. If it wasn't secretly all about punishing women.

You should have just @ me.

When exactly does this so called fetus become a baby then?

When it can survive outside the womb. The infant mortality rate has gone up because babies, who have conditions and deformities that make them incompatible with life, are being born.

Lots of other people have @ you to explain this.

A baby can survive at 24 weeks. Would you be okay with terminating a pregnancy at 23 weeks? I'm really trying not to be graphic but do you have any idea what that would look like?

All life is valuable. Whether that life lasts one minute or one century.

I've avoided responding up to now but OPs tirade full of name calling is fine against me but I know for 100% fact that if I responded with the same attitude from my point of view, I'd be instantly banned.

We're not talking about healthy babies here. You're ignoring that point. These babies will not survive, even if they are born at full term.

Nobody is waiting until 23 weeks to terminate a pregnancy, if they have the choice.

The BBC was reporting on the findings of a study by researchers at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, published 13/2/25 and is a statistical analysis of infant mortality from 2012, well before the ruling on Roe vs Wade and 2023, the year after the ruling

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2830298

What, precisely makes it "garbage"?

Many of these states have some of the highest poverty rates

Even if a baby, born with life limiting or severe problems, might possibly survive, then many families have no way of affording care

The idea that someone would prefer to traumatise the mother and effectively torture a baby until it dies anyway is i comprehensible to me. And for what ? A baby that lived a few hours or even days in terrible pain ?

If this is really your view you need to own it and take the consequences- ie that people will think you are a monster.

@ThejoyofNC less than 1% of abortions happen at 21 weeks or later and the vast majority of those abortions will be because a severe medical issue will have been discovered.

@ThejoyofNC what are you personally doing to make women's lives better? Children's lives better? Because more women would carry to term if they were fed, clothed, housed, could leave violent relationships, could afford healthcare for themselves and their children, knew if they had a disabled child they could rely on high quality care and respite.

Some believers seem to believe in life before birth and after death but forget entirely about the bit in the middle.

There is nothing misleading about removing a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.

Of course this is happening. Ob-Gyns are leaving forced birth states because now they are told that it's better to let women die along with a foetus than to save the woman with an abortion, and if they intervene before she is on the brink of death they will be charged with performing an illegal abortion. So this is what results. Barbaric.

I should add I do not blame the ob-gyns for getting out. Imagine having to watch someone die, totally preventably, because you can't necessarily call correctly when they are close enough to death for you to legally intervene?

The implied argument here seems to be that abortion reduces infant mortality due to preventing the existence of babies with certain abnormalities.

I can't say that I find that a particularly convincing argument, it's really just that the deaths are being counted in a different place.

Considering that the places that are doing this already have parlous, world-losing infant mortality, and are supposedly doing this for babies... wouldn't you expect them to have taken any steps to reduce infant mortality in other ways?

Instead, the worst states for infant mortality are the worst states for abortion provision. You'd expect these leading lights of women's and children's health provision to be leading the charge to reduce infant mortality. Instead, you can pretty much lay the maps over each other and the same states that are 'saving' babies are also killing them in great numbers.

Which is one of the many reasons it's obvious it's not about babies.

A baby can survive at 24 weeks.

Er, no

Some babies can survive being born at 24 weeks, but many do not

Those who do survive premature birth, often face profound physical, sensory and intellectual disabilities

In a state with higher than the national poverty rates, these disabilities could financially cripple a family

The biggest cause of bankruptcy in the USA is medical debt

Those who are down are being made to stay down

Women who miscarry at that gestation have photographs taken by hospital staff, sealed and kept on the notes in case they ask for them later, sometimes many years later.

I'm also not going to be graphic, but these are not all just tiny versions of healthy full term births and they have experienced every moment (due to the miscarriages being spontaneous) rather than having absolutely no awareness or sensation as there would be in a planned termination for medical reasons/incompatibility with life.

Deliberately punishing both the mothers and their dying child by ensuring that they both have the maximum period of suffering before one has the release of death and the other has a life sentence of the memory of watching it happen - if they survive themselves - and to also be financially crucified as an intentional part of the punishment - is cruelty for the sake of it.

This is a brief overview of the research in the paper that published the research.

Full research behind paywall.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2830298

@puck23? Can you explain your laugh reaction to my post please?

Well they would not have been born would they?

Are you so anti abortion you think it is a good thing to force a woman or girl to carry a baby to term knowing it will die at birth or shortly after?

I cannot get my head around that. I can get my head around some 'pro life' ideas, even if I don't agree with them but not forcing a woman / girl to carry a non viable pregnancy.

Given that many posters have laid out eloquent and compassionate posts on their reasoning for supporting rights to abortion, it might have been good to hear the counter arguments from those claiming to want debate.

I see we've been accused of 'bitching', instead.

It's clear it's not about babies. The infant mortality rate has gone up in those states that have total bans because some children will be born only to die, and often die in pain and to the great distress of their mother and father.

All life is valuable. Whether that life lasts one minute or one century.

Valuable to who? Who benefits from forcing a woman or girl to carry a foetus with a medical condition not compatible with life to term?

Not the woman/girl. She's had months of carrying this foetus with all the associated physical and mental risks, knowing what the outcome would be. What is the value to her?

Not the foetus/baby who dies in pain shortly after birth. What is the value to him/her?

So who benefits?