Infant Mortality Spikes Under Abortion Bans

2.13.25

Click to skip ahead: In ‘Pro-Life’ Laws Killing Infants, new research shows a marked increase in infant deaths in states with abortion bans.

Criminalizing Care has updates on the targeting of a New York abortion provider, this time out of Texas.

Emergency Abortions and….Dr. Oz? Trump’s clown car sure is getting crowded!

Abortion Reports & Data looks at Republicans’ claim that their states have “zero” abortions.

In the States, news from Colorado, Wisconsin and Kentucky.

In the Nation, RFK was confirmed. Sigh.

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‘Pro-Life’ Laws Killing Infants

Please don’t tell me anyone is surprised: New research published in JAMA confirms that states with abortion bans have seen a surge in infant deaths. Researchers found that infant mortality was 6% higher than expected in states with bans, and that deaths due to congenital abnormalities jumped nearly 11%.

Infant mortality had been declining since the ’90s—until Dobbs. Lead researcher Dr. Alison Gemmill, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told USA Today, “We have a very clear reason as to why it’s trending in the wrong direction—it’s because of policy choices.”

I covered Dr. Gemmill’s work late last year, when she published a study on the rise of infant mortality in Texas—reporting on the 23% spike in infant deaths due to congenital anomalies.

The short version? Texas bans abortion even in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities, which means women who would normally end their doomed pregnancies were instead forced to give birth. Here’s what Gemmill told the Los Angeles Times at the time:

“Prior to these abortion bans, people had the option to terminate if the fetus was found to have a severe congenital anomaly—we’re talking about organs being outside of the body and other things that are very severe and not compatible with life.”

In other words, more babies are dying because women are being forced to carry nonviable pregnancies to term.

Naturally, the communities most impacted are already the most vulnerable: Black infants, in particular, died at a 11% higher rate than expected. And as Dr. Caitlin Myers told the New York Times, women who can’t obtain abortions by traveling or ordering abortion pills online are “more likely to be poor, more likely to be women of color, and those populations have higher rates of maternal morbidity and mortality, infant complications, infant mortality.” (Myers does similar research, but was not involved in this study.)

Again—none of this is a shock. But what’s critical to keep repeating is that Republicans knew this would happen. None of this is accidental. Anti-abortion activists and lawmakers spent decades crafting policies they knew would lead to more maternal and infant deaths. They just didn’t care.

I mean, consider their response. When Texas’ rising infant mortality rate made headlines, Michael New of the Charlotte Lozier Institute insisted it was a good thing—proof that the law was “preventing unborn children from being aborted due to their medical condition.” Texas Alliance for Life defended the law as stopping “discrimination” against disabled children. And today in the Times, Donna Harrison of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetrician & Gynecologists (AAPLOG) said the infants who died “would have been killed in induced abortions” anyway.

If you haven’t read Abortion, Every Day’s Calculated Cruelty series, now’s a good time. I broke down the anti-abortion movement’s quiet campaign to force women to carry doomed pregnancies to term—along with their push to do away with prenatal testing. After all, what better way to ensure women carry nonviable pregnancies than ensuring they never find out about their diagnosis in the first place?

Calculated Cruelty

Speaking of gross manipulation: Given Republicans’ efforts to suppress maternal mortality data, I wonder how long before they try to do the same with infant deaths. I’ll be keeping an eye out.

Criminalizing Care

Because in a moment when the country is falling apart and abortion bans are killing women, these assholes apparently have nothing better to do: Today a Texas judge ordered Dr. Maggie Carpenter to stop shipping abortion medication to the state and to pay a $100,000 fine. But Dr. Carpenter, a New York abortion provider, is protected by her state’s shield law—both from criminal and civil penalties.

That obviously hasn’t stopped Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton or Louisiana district attorney Tony Clayton from targeting Carpenter. It was just yesterday, in fact, that Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill signed an extradition order for Carpenter. (New York Gov. Kathy Hochul held a press conference in response, saying she would absolutely not be extraditing Carpenter. “Not now, not ever.”)

Both cases are expected to be battled out in federal court, and conservatives’ goal is to take the issue to the Supreme Court.

Please consider supporting Dr. Carpenter by donating to her organization, the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, here.

Emergency Abortions and…Dr Oz?

How many total fucking clowns does it take to gut abortion rights? Donald Trump is determined to find out! Rolling Stone reports that Sen. Elizabeth Warren held a private meeting with Dr. Mehmet Oz—Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). If confirmed, Oz would be responsible for enforcing EMTALA, the federal law that requires hospitals to provide life-saving and stabilizing abortions in emergency situations.

That’s right: The guy who peddled ‘miracle’ diet pills and snake oil cures could decide whether hospitals are held accountable for denying women life-saving abortion care. Reporter Tessa Stuart reminds us why Dr. Oz doesn’t exactly inspire confidence on this particular issue:

“[He] has called abortion “murder,” asserted that life begins at conception, and said that reproductive decisions should be between “women, doctors, [and] local political leaders.’”

The same day that Sen. Warren met with Oz, she sent him a letter with Sen. Tammy Duckworth, asking if he would “help enforce the rights of women under this life-saving law,” or if he’d adhere to Project 2025—which “directs HHS to take several steps to limit EMTALA’s protections.”

And it’s not just EMTALA. If Oz gets the job, he’d also oversee Medicare and Medicaid’s coverage of reproductive health services and access to contraception under the ACA.

So to recap: Trump wants a TV doctor who called abortion murder to control whether hospitals can refuse life-saving abortion care—and whether millions of Americans can access contraception. What could go wrong?

Abortion Reports & Data

You all know by now that I’m obsessed with abortion reports, data, and how conservatives are messing with statistics to further roll back reproductive rights. So I was really interested in this piece today from KFF Health News about how Republican-led states are reporting that they’ve had zero abortions take place within their borders.

OBGYNs, of course, call that idea “ludicrous.” After all, patients are having abortion pills shipped to them from doctors in shield states. The latest #WeCount statistics report that telehealth accounts for 20% of abortions.

WeCount co-chair and public health scientist Ushma Upadhyay told KFF Health News, “It’s so clinically dishonest.” And Ishan Mehta at Common Cause gets right to the heart of the issue:

“For better or worse, government data is the official record. You are not just reporting data. You are feeding into an ecosystem that is going to have much larger ramifications.”

This is part of the reason I’m so obsessive about conservatives’ war on data—they know that these numbers are the historical record, and that they can use fabricated statistics to influence policy.

Take the Republican moves around abortion ‘complication’ reporting, for example. Abortion, Every Day published an investigation in 2023 about the way that Texas forces doctors to report false abortion complications to the state—and threatens them with the loss of their license if they don’t:

Texas is Fabricating Abortion Data

The goal here is to drive up fake stats, giving Republicans the ability to claim that abortion is dangerous despite all credible evidence to the contrary—and providing them with ammunition to continually restrict access to reproductive health.

One more thing about states claiming they had “zero” abortions: It’s not just pro-choice folks angry about that lie. Last month, I reported that abortion ‘abolitionist’ lawmakers in Oklahoma were pissed off that their Republican cohorts signed onto the idea that the state had no abortions. Why? So that they could claim that even one or two abortions taking place in the state meant that they needed a law to punish abortion patients as murderers. Charming.

In the States

Some good news out of Colorado: Democrats are pushing for even stronger protections for abortion providers. Senate Bill 25-129, which passed the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee, builds on Colorado’s existing shield law by barring law enforcement, hospitals, and insurers from cooperating with out-of-state abortion investigations.

The bill also follows in the footsteps of New York, and allows providers to leave their name off prescription labels for abortion pills. This is a big deal—doctors’ names on labels were how Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and a Louisiana prosecutor went after New York abortion provider Maggie Carpenter.

Then there’s Senate Bill 25-130, which would codify EMTALA protections into state law—ensuring hospital emergency rooms are required to provide life-saving and stabilizing care, including abortions.

Over in Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court race is once again centering on abortion rights. As you may remember, it wasn’t so long ago that Wisconsin voters reshaped the court by electing pro-choice Justice Janet Protasiewicz in a race that became a referendum on abortion. Now, history is repeating itself in the race between Republican Brad Schimel, the former attorney general of Wisconsin, and Dane County Judge Susan Crawford.

Over the weekend, both candidates were asked whether they’d recuse themselves from abortion-related cases. Republicans have been losing their minds over the fact that Crawford previously represented Planned Parenthood Wisconsin—but she isn’t backing down. “I’m proud of the work that I did as a lawyer in our courts fighting for people’s rights,” she said, “including Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and their doctors, to protect their right to deliver health care services to women without having to be in fear of felony prosecution for doing it.”

Meanwhile, Schimel isn’t just anti-abortion—he was caught on tape a few weeks ago admitting he’s already made up his mind on the abortion case currently before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. But somehow, he still insists he wouldn’t recuse himself. A refresher on his comments and what’s at stake in Wisconsin is here.

Finally, pro-choicers protested in Kentucky today over the state’s “dystopian” abortion ban. Speaker Brenda Rosen didn’t mince words: “A bullet should not have more rights than our vaginas.”

A local news outlet also spoke to Jamie Dullen, a mother and grandmother holding a sign that read, “our daughters deserve choices.”

“To have some politician, that none of us know, think that they can tell us what we can do with our body, instead of a doctor—it's enraging,” she said. That’s exactly the right word.

Quick hits:

• Ohio Republicans want to give tax credits to those who donate to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.

• Anti-abortion legislators in Nebraska are trying to enact more restrictions on abortion pills under the guise of ‘protecting’ women.

• A trial has begun over Michigan’s abortion restrictions—like a 24-hour waiting period—now that abortion rights are codified in the state’s constitution.

In the Nation

Well, it happened: RFK has been confirmed as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Remember what I said about Trump’s clown car?

I’ll leave RFK’s long history of vaccine denialism and general weirdo behavior to other folks—but let’s get into Kennedy and abortion rights. Up until recently, he was all over the place on the issue. You can read a bit of a background here, but the short version is that Kennedy abandoned whatever pro-choice values he may have had in order to please Trump and get the gig. Now the baby-bear-killing maniac says he’ll do whatever Daddy Trump wants.

So what does that mean for abortion? We know from Project 2025 that HHS plays a huge role in conservatives’ plan to gut reproductive rights. And Kennedy himself dropped some hints about what might come next at his confirmation hearing:

RFK Jr. Accidentally Reveals Trump's Plan on Abortion

What you should be on the lookout for: Anything about data collection and abortion reporting, HIPAA and privacy rules, and language about ‘late’ abortion.

Oh, and I’ll be keeping a close eye on Students for Life’s latest unhinged claim—that abortion medication is poisoning the groundwater. Yes, really. If ever there were a lie tailor-made for Kennedy, this is it.