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

There are feminist reasons for opposing abortion, at least abortion on demand of healthy pregnancies. One, I think, is that abortion on demand makes of a woman a sex object only rather than as a person with reproductive rights. I mean that a woman who chooses not to abort an accidental pregnancy or one that is unwanted is seen as selfish by some - as imposing duties e.g. upon the father than he has not accepted.
The problem of aborting healthy pregnancies arises though when one looks at abject poverty in which some women live, who may also be abused mentally, physically and sexually. In such cases abortion may well be the right choice of action. I find the suggestion that such unwanted babies can be adopted as awful as surrogacy; as if the poor and miserable should put up with their misery to provide better off woman with a child. There is no right to have children.

But why would Black women be so much more likely to conceive infants with conditions incompatible with life?
I think these numbers might be revealing something dreadful but all the energy and analysis focuses on the political goals most attractive to wealthy/ white women.

Probably not allowed access to contraception?
There was a shocking case of two young white parents in USA who left two older children in a room daubed with faeces and urine

The Baby had cockroach faeces in her groin with a festering nappy-
The children didn’t speak and when taken outside by police looked at the grass like it was nothing they had seen before.

These children will probably never recover from early neglect.
Thank goodness a neighbour called child services as she saw the children with excrement all over them at the windows- naked day after day.

Early Abortion and decent contraception could have saved this awful suffering to the children.

It was on a news story online.

Contraception and Termination is way better than unwanted children and inhumane neglect.

@ArabellaScott
(sorry I've tagged you and phone won't let me delete tag - post once written not so directly responsive to your question)

On this thread @Grammarnut has suggested it is better for a severely disabled child to die than live with an impoverished family which I guess looks like a slippery slope to me.
I want to be able to preserve women's ability to chose whether or not to bring a pregnancy to term without opening the door to devaluing some lives and expecting termination from some women in some circumstances (see also, 2 child caps).

Probably due to the level of racism in the US that black women are more likely to be living in severe poverty with insufficient access to medical care. Terrible nutrition is one cause that can increase birth defects.

Well, it is better that a very poor Black woman can end her pregnancy early rather than have a little bub who cannot live because of conditions caused by her poverty - but that's not really choice, is it? A woman in this situation isn't exercising any kind of free choice. Her poverty has already stripped her of autonomy.

There's a difference between the theory, which is about classes of people; and the practice which is how policies impact actual individual women.
A poor woman has all of her choices limited by poverty. We don't improve her lot by removing one of the few choices she has.

If we want to design a path out of this situation for women, then people need to get over their knee jerk dog in a manger reaction to other people getting free stuff that they can't have, or to 'socialist' policies; and we need to design a society in which its possible to raise children.
Women need pre natal nutrition and healthcare, maternal leave from work, childcare and housing. Children need healthcare and education. Seeing these benefits as being a drain on hard working tax payers misses the point that they are requirements for a civilised society.

Abortion bans are killing women and babies. Abortion is a healthcare issue. Squeamishness about medical abortion has no place in the debate because no legitimate Government has the right to impost the death penalty on a woman who's only crime is to be unlucky in pregnancy.

You cant possibly be silenced

I don't quite understand your point here, it seems like a total non-sequitur.

My point is that the fact that these deaths are now being counted in a different set of statistics doesn't actually show that medical progress has been set back, or that it was better before, which seems to me to be the implication of the article. These kinds of abnormalities and problems were not cured by abortion, and they aren't cured now. It's a very disingenuous argument.

it seems like a total non-sequitur.

Two conditions, and what you would expect to see:

One, that banning abortion is because your focus as lawmakers is on babies, welfare of babies, health of babies. Kindness to mothers and a deep care for the outcomes of children.

Two, that your focus is on restricting and hurting women. You don't care about women, or children. No care or thought to reducing infant or maternal mortality.

In condition one, what you should see, as well as abortion bans, are measures to increase the welfare of mothers and babies. Any increase in infant mortality from full-term abortions that would have happened, should be balanced with reduced overall infant mortality because of the other things you've done for infants, children, and families. You should, if you have lawmakers focused on infant health and wellness, already live in one of the states that has a good track record.

In condition two, you'd expect poor outcomes before and after the ban. You'd expect bad outcomes for infants, e.g. high infant mortality. Because there would be no other measures put in place to help mothers and babies. You'd expect poor outcomes all around. Because no one cares about mothers and babies.

And LO! Already bad infant mortality, getting worse.

Do any of these lawmakers even pretend? Suggest laws for nutrition, maternity leave, BFing support, housing, anything that would actually reduce infant mortality?

Every baby ideally would be wanted, and to be looked after properly to see it into independent adulthood -
Unwanted babies born into neglect and chaos is cruel.
Contraception is the answer here, but in reality people don't always use it.

Very early termination is more humane, surely.

I did not say it was 'better for a severely disabled child to die than live with an impoverished family'. I said that the US figures showed that children who would die either at birth or soon after due to conditions incompatible with life, were being brought to term and dying soon after birth (possibly in great pain). I think I cited anencephaly. The abortion of babies whose deformities are not compatible with life is permitted upto term in the UK, though the time limit for elective abortions is 24 weeks, for comparison with the US. Incompatibility with life is not the same as severely disabled.
I do not support abortion for such things as cleft paletter or club foot, which should be obvious (I was born with a cleft palette, as it happens).

Not on your Nelly do they. That might cut pharma's and the health industries' profits.

Wanted to add this, River. I did give this reason for abortion: when one looks at (the) abject poverty in which some women live, who may also be abused mentally, physically and sexually - (i)n such cases abortion may well be the right choice of action
These facts of many women's lives in the early twentieth century (and every century before it) were some of the reasons why the 1967 abortion act was passed in the UK. In order to help the wives of men who mistreated them. To help women who had no recourse to contraception because their DH would not allow it and would throw out packets of pills, caps, refuse to use a condom because they were entitled to sex without the 'reduction in pleasure' caused by condoms and to father children at their will (for such men, in poor work, their wife was the only person they had power over, so they used that power). Women whose DH beat them and who, in the 60s, for both economic and social reasons had no way to escape this misery and the misery of the children they bore. It's not the thin end of any wedge, it is the wedge itself - men abused women's reproductive capacity and in 1967 women were finally able to stop them (sometimes). Greater access to childcare and paid work has much reduced (not ended) the abuse of women in intimate relationships, thanks to feminism.

My issue with your comment is that the only measure you are using is the death of the baby and it's irrelevant whether that is abortion or incompatible with life. But there is a cost to the mother too in having to go through with a pregnancy, there's a cost to other family members including children. Why are women not trusted to make the right decision for themselves.

sorry @Grammarnut this is the post I was thinking of, I've tagged the wrong person.
I don't disagree with anything you say. I went on a bit of a fact finding mission after reading the free summary of OP's paper because I was very ignorant about alot of the race and wealth disparities relating to reproductive freedoms in the USA.

I wonder if americans who don’t want abortion are going to be willing to pay for a lifetime of medical and social care needed by babies born with serious health conditions?
I am disabled myself and am a retired learning disability nurse so in no way am I suggesting all pregnancies with a risk of the baby being disabled should be terminated but there are conditions which will mean life long suffering. To insist such pregnancies continue to birth is not only cruel but will ultimately be extremely costly in medical and care bills.
Given the US doesn’t want to pay for universal healthcare or to support poor or disabled people how is the resultant increase in severely disabled and ill babies being born who will become severely disabled and ill children/ adults work out for them?
I can only suppose they don’t mind suffering and dying after birth because that is “god’s will”. There is sometimes a bit of sentimentality and charity fundraising for “sick kids” but it is much less fashionable to do anything for the very same babies and children once they are adults.
Although the US doesn’t give a shit about women’s rights, it certainly gives multiple shits about money so this has not been thought through.

I was very ignorant about alot of the race and wealth disparities relating to reproductive freedoms in the USA.

There have been a few threads on FWR about the high level of maternity deaths of Black American women - and although poverty is a contributor, there is also a lack of understanding or willingness to accept that for some women of African heritage they are at greater rishs from conditions not as common in white women. 2 very famous US Black women both nearly died giving birth, and a well known athlete died giving birth at home alone, thought to be that her fear of going to hospital because of these statistics.

Sorry this is a bit of a derail but here are 2 graphs showing this disparity in health care in the US. (NB UK is also bad)

Sources:
https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/racial-disparities-in-maternal-and-infant-health-current-status-and-efforts-to-address-them/
https://www.marchofdimes.org/peristats/data?reg=99&top=6&stop=92&lev=1&slev=1&obj=1

So in relation to the data in OP it should be possible to show whether since the imposition of limits on abortion there is an increase compared to the period prior to the imposition.

As opposed to how many infants who would have been killed by abortion?

Zero infants are killed by abortion.

Savita Halappanavar. That's what can happen. Don't forget women like her.

CDC data analysis https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/ss/ss7307a1.htm#T1_down

I will never forget Savita Halappanavar.

Add to this the fact that the richest man in the world is already slashing support for disabled families and children. This isn't about caring for 'life' or believing that profoundly disabled children should live, because they want to ensure such children and their families get no support, no encouragement, no enrichment of their lives unless they are fortunate enough to have parents who can afford to buy these things privately.

Thankyou to all the posters here who've responded to me.
I've had some clarity overnight about why the JAMA paper disturbs me (granted, I've only read the summary).
It seems to rest on an assumption that, "Abortion needs to be legal because there are some pregnancies that, objectively, should end in termination."
That's a really dodgy basis for justifying access to abortion, imo.
Securing legal (and practical) access to abortion is about returning agency to the woman who is actually pregnant.
I can have all sorts of opinions about the futility or meaninglessness or burdensomeness of any particular child's life, but that's not what the need for abortion is based on. It's about whether or not a woman wants to bring her own pregnancy to term.
If any social pressure to abort a pregnancy is brought to bear on a woman it's, imo, a violation. And the (hopefully completely misunderstood) suggestion that that pressure be brought to bear more heavily on Black women just set off alarm bells. Which I think clouded my thinking and comprehension.