This week, the Commonwealth Fund released a study that purportedly found that state-level pro-life laws are linked to poor public-health outcomes. Specifically, the authors of the study claim that those states that were the most active in passing pro-life laws had higher maternal-mortality rates and infant-mortality rates than did other states. This Commonwealth Fund study has already received plenty of sympathetic coverage from a number of mainstream media outlets. including CNN, ABC News, NBC News, U.S. News and World Report, and the Hill.
However, a closer look reveals a number of significant methodological shortcomings. Indeed, the study fails to make a compelling argument that either pro-life laws or lack of access to abortion worsens public health. This is for several reasons. First, the public-health data analyzed in this study comes from 2018, 2019, and 2020. During that time, abortion was legal in all 50 states and each state had at least one abortion facility. Given that, the state-level disparities in the availability of abortion are far less than the authors indicate.
Second, the authors use a flawed measure by the Guttmacher Institute to categorize states in terms of their abortion policy. This Guttmacher measure captures the number of pro-life policies a state has in place. However, it does not look at abortion rates, the number of abortion facilities, or other factors that measure the availability of abortion. Using this Guttmacher measure, the authors deem 26 states “abortion-restriction states” and 24 states “abortion-access states.” The study finds that, on average, the “abortion-restriction states” fare worse on a range of public-health metrics, including maternal-death rates and infant-death rates.
However, the study’s main methodological shortcoming is that it fails to control for important confounding variables such as per capita income or poverty rates. Indeed, the main reason why pro-life states fare worse on some public-heath metrics is that many of them are southern states, which tend to have lower per capita incomes and higher poverty rates. Research shows that high incomes are linked with better public-health outcomes. This study, too, shows a correlation between income and public health. It fails to make a convincing argument that the presence of pro-life laws is responsible for either high maternal death rates or high infant-death rates.
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Furthermore, a substantial body of international data show that pro-life laws are consistent with strong maternal-health outcomes. Poland has among the strongest protective pro-life laws in Europe and also one of the lowest maternal-mortality rates in Europe. Prior to legalizing abortion in 2018, Ireland had lower rates of maternal deaths, low-weight births, and breast cancer than did England and Wales and Scotland. Similarly, academic research using data from Chile shows that maternal-mortality rates continued to fall after protections for preborn children were enacted in 1989.
Additionally, peer-reviewed studies have shown that pro-life parental-involvement laws in the U.S. reduce teen suicide rates and teen STI rates. Indeed, pro-lifers should not be distracted by this study. Very good research shows that pro-life laws can protect both mother and child.
LifeNews Note: Michael New is a research associate at the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America and is an associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. he is a former professor at Ave maria University and University of Michigan, Dearborn.
