If the U.S. Supreme Court does as its leaked draft opinion says and strikes down Roe v. Wade, researchers expect that in the following year, roughly 75,000 people who want, but can’t get, abortions will give birth instead.
They’ll do so in a country where pregnancy and childbirth continue to become more dangerous.
Government data released this year shows that U.S. maternal deaths increased significantly in the first year of the pandemic, going from 754 in 2019 to 861 in 2020, a 14% jump. The death rate for Black women was almost three times higher than that for white women.
The stats for 2020 were no surprise. As ProPublica detailed in 2017, the U.S. has fallen behind other wealthy nations and many less affluent ones where deaths linked to pregnancy and childbirth have plummeted over the past two decades. Deaths are only one yardstick for measuring maternal health. For every U.S. woman who dies as a result of pregnancy or childbirth, up to 70 suffer dangerous and sometimes life-threatening complications.
The landscape for maternal health post-Roe would change swiftly, and not for the better, many public health officials and experts say. Some 25 states would likely move to ban abortion, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. A brief submitted in the case on which the court is ruling, signed by about 550 public-health and reproductive-health researchers, draws a straight line between lack of abortion access and increased risk of maternal death.
“Put simply,” the brief says, “women living in states with the most restrictive abortion policies — and thus the least abortion access — were found to be more likely to die while pregnant or shortly thereafter than women living in states with less restrictive abortion policies, regardless of state-to-state differences in poverty, race/ethnicity, and education.”
Middlebury College economics professor Caitlin Knowles Myers, whose work focuses the effects of limits on abortion access, said her research shows that in the year after the ruling, about 100,000 women seeking abortions won’t be able to get them from providers. Some may be able to obtain pills for self-managed abortions, but about three-quarters will give birth.
Those women are likely to be disproportionately poor, young, of color and concentrated in the Deep South, parts of the Midwest and some Western states, often in places where social safety nets are weakest, she said. “Overwhelmingly, it is the poorest and most vulnerable women who are the most affected.”
Dr. Katy Kozhimannil, a health policy professor who directs the University of Minnesota’s Rural Health Research Center, said the loss of abortion access will be a compounding factor in rural communities where contraceptives are hard to get and hospitals have closed or no longer have obstetrics departments.
“I think we’re going to see a lot more emergency obstetric needs in rural communities that are not at all equipped to handle them,” she said.
Many of the states with trigger laws that will outlaw abortion once the Supreme Court has ruled have larger rural populations and a higher percentage of Black and Indigenous residents in those areas, Kozhimannil added.
–Robin Fields and Adriana Gallardo, ProPublica
Kyndra L Mulder says
Can you provide some credible sources for this claim? I would love to speak on the issue but I will only do so using credible sources.
Do you have an credible sources to support the claim that depression among women has risen equal to the number of abortions in the United States?
Do you have credible sources to indicate that 100% of babies die from abortion?
Do you have credible sources to contradict the general medical principle that the presence of a heart beat and brain wavies indicate life?
I love to hear intelligent opinions. I detest the spreading of unsupported claims.
Kyndra L Mulder says
Without quoting any sources to support your claim; are you saying that the federal government is better at legalizing the killing of the unborn than state governments? Is the baby less likely to live if killed pursuant to state laws? Is the mother less likely to survive if she kills her baby pursuant to state laws? I don’t get it. Please help me to understand your rational.
Jimbo99 says
So we can expect more overpopulation issues. Interesting that some people can sleep better and be more righteous about how they rationalize their murders. Just me, but folks need to raise the bar on their breeding hobbies. Don’t get preggers, there’s no need to debate or have an abortion. It does take 2 to make a baby, so the dudes need to do their part as well. Get a puppy or kitten 1st, if you can’t handle that responsibility, chances are you have no reason to ever have children. Can’t afford them, don’t expect the rest of us to pick up the tab on it.
Sherry says
“Think” (what a concept for many people commenting here) about a woman’s right to protect and control her own body in this way:
Body autonomy is a critical component to the right to privacy which is protected by our constitution. . . as decided in Griswold vs Connecticut, Mc Fall vs Shimp (1978) and of course Roe vs Wade.
Consider a scenario where you the only person on earth for a bone marrow match for a child with sever Aplastic anemia, and that child will most certainly die without “your” particular bone marrow. If you decide that you do not want to donate your bone marrow to save that child . . . for whatever reason. . . the government cannot demand the use of your body for anything that you do not consent to. It doesn’t matter how flimsy your objection, or if the child is a genius or a saint you cannot be compelled to donate any part of your sacred body. This right is even extended to a person’s body after they die. . . if they did not voluntarily legally commit to donate their organs those organs cannot be legally harvested no matter how many lives could be saved. That is the LAW!
The use of a woman’s uterus to save a life should be no different than the use of her bone marrow to save a life. Therefore it should be a woman’s choice to carry out any pregnancy. Supporting that precedent is what being pro-choice means.
Sherry says
jimbo. . . . RAPE and INCEST. . . Rape and Incest. . . . rape and incest!
Unless/until YOU are in the position of the government DEMANDING the use of your sacred body against your will for anything, YOU have absolutely NOTHING to say on this subject!!!!
Sherry says
Kyndra. . . simply click on the links to the expert information given to the Supreme court:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/193302/20210921172339465_19-1392%20Brief.pdf
Jimbo99 says
Since I’m expected to pay for any of it. I would say that gives me the right to have a say in anything that involves my personal finances. I really don’t care if it’s your vagina or not.
Skibum says
Am I the only man who keeps wondering when listening to any discussion about the topic of aborting an unwanted pregnancy, why why why WHY there is NEVER any mention of restrictions or penalties being considered for a man who causes an unwanted pregnancy? It is always put solely on the woman as if she conceived via immaculate conception. We should all remember that every pregnancy, and thus every process resulting in an abortion, begins with a man’s penis. Of course, I know the answer to my question. Men are usually the ones making our laws, and to think that they would be inclusive enough, enlightened enough, mature enough to recognize that it takes both a man and a woman to conceive, and so to also enact laws placing equal legal restrictions on a man’s penis when enacting laws placing legal restrictions on a woman’s womb is I guess to much to ask in a free society in the 21st century… or is it???
Sherry says
Since I am expected to pay for the Viagra men use to impregnate women, the roads and bridges you drive on, for the cops and fire personnel that protect you. . . I would prefer that you did not use those resources. . . and, I really don’t care if it ruins your life. It works both ways. . . hypocrites!
jimbo, through all your illiterate talking nonsense in circles and mindlessly posting FOX talking points, you really have zero credibility here anyway. Ray W. was the only one who thought your blathering random, illogical writing had the potential to make any sense at all. It would be interesting to know his take on this subject.
George Carlin said it best:
CARLIN: Boy these conservatives are really something aren’t they? They’re all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn, but once you’re born you’re on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that they don’t want to know about you. They don’t want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no daycare, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re pre-born you’re fine. If you’re preschool you’re fucked!
Sherry says
Thank you Skibum!!! Unfortunately, it is still a man’s world. . . and we most certainly are NOT a free society, even in this century. In fact, billionaires and politicians and judges (especially Republican ones) are working hard to take many of our freedoms away. . . except for murder by GUNS of course!!!
j.dante says
Sherry has it exactly! Not only is our right to our own body autonomy protected BY LAW; that very law is considered so sacred & basic to our freedom that the law itself extends BEYOND our life. You cannot take organs from a dead person unless they had consented to that donation. So what republicans are saying is that the dead are indeed protected by the law, but living pregnant women have no such right? I was born at night, but NOT last night.
REPUBLICANS, Stop trying to control women & stop using women for political advantage, it’s totally disgraceful!
Sherry says
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/4/2095923/-Now-is-the-perfect-time-to-revisit-George-Carlin-s-take-on-the-pro-life-movement?detail=emaildkbow
A great video from wonderful George Carlin!
Timothy Patrick Welch says
Nearly 100% of abortions are not Rape and Incest, 98.5-99%.
Punish the offender not the innocent child.
Kyndra Mulder says
Why does this paper always make such absolute statements and not quote a source? I don’t know who is writing the article or what your credentials are for making your absolute statements.
Jeremy Everhart says
The child has no input on the conception or it’s birth. For God’s sake have some pity on the baby. You whine and cry about cruelty to puppies and kittens but couldn’t give two shits about your own. Holstein. These children are your own body. At least rational people care for their own bodies. Babies are not parasites bitches. They are you. Go to a fucked up democrat state and get yourself butchered. Don’t ask me to pay for it or to support you afterwards. Selfishness is human nature but it has never been attractive. By the way, I agree that the dock that got you preggers is also to blame. If you can’t control your penis or vagina then you should lose the freedom to self control them. Adulthood is all about responsibility. Unfortunately few people today choose to be responsible for anything.
Joseph Z says
Well said Sherry! I know many who support this absurd “ruling” have good and pure intentions. However, a very large percent of the people who who argue for “Life” have positions that totally contradict exactly what they are saying; it smells like a “hidden agenda” to me.
The more one investigates, the more one smells an intention to control women; pure and simple. It’s sad, but it seems like these folks would have us all living in the 1820’s again; including a politically motivated and totally out of touch with the times and the law, “Supreme Court”.
Kyndra Mulder says
Clearly you have drawn your conclusions from the liberal media headlines and you have not done any research on your own.
Pierre Tristam says
A Friend of the Court brief submitted to the Supreme Court by 547 deans, chairs, scholars and public health professionals, plus the American Public Health Association and others, is hardly “liberal media” or an indication of lacking research. It appears Mulder is projecting. The truth is out there, Mulder.
agitator says
No one made abortion illegal. They merely decided it was the individual states to decide the issue. Se We the People get to decide.
Why do we never mention contraception and responsibility.
agitator says
Does this work two ways…My body, keep your nasty injections out of my body?