FACT: Banning abortion dramatically reduces the rate of abortion— and the number of women dying from abortion
Restrictive state-level abortion policies are associated with not having an abortion at all. Calculated to account for the rate of criminal/illegal abortions.
A major challenge to understanding barriers to abortion is that those individuals most affected may never reach an abortion provider, making
“Women who lived in a state where abortion access was low were more likely than women living in a state with greater access to use highly effective contraceptives rather than no method” Not only are abortion rates lower where abortions are illegal, but unwanted pregnancy rates too. People are more careful. (From the Guttmacher Institute, former statistics arm of Planned Parenthood.) https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2015/05/state-abortion-context-and-us-womens-contraceptive-choices-1995-2010
29% of Medicaid eligible pregnant women who would have an abortion with Medicaid coverage, instead give birth. Calculated to account for the rate of criminal/illegal abortions. https://bmcwomenshealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12905-019-0775-5
Analysis of statewide data from the three States indicated that following restrictions on State funding of abortions, the proportion of reported pregnancies resulting in births, rather than in abortions, increased in all three States. Calculated to account for the rate of criminal/illegal abortions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1580169/pdf/pubhealthrep00193-0013.pdf
Approximately one-fourth of women who would have Medicaid-funded abortions instead give birth when this funding is unavailable … Studies have found little evidence that lack of Medicaid funding has resulted in illegal abortions. Calculated to account for the rate of criminal/illegal abortions.
We find that a 100-mile increase in distance to the nearest clinic is associated with 30.7 percent fewer abortions and 3.2 percent more births. Calculated to account for the rate of criminal/illegal abortions.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pam.22263
rate of abortion is found to be lower in states where access to providers is reduced and state policies are restrictive. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9099567/
A wait time as short as 72 hours is enough to start decreasing abortion rates. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1049386716300603
Abortion decreased after being restricted: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4050978/
Michigan banned Medicaid from paying for abortion. Abortion rates dropped. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8135922/
The farther away a woman is from an abortion facility, the less likely she is to get one: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2134397?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Some restrictions were enacted in Eastern Europe in the 80s and 90s. The rates of abortion AND pregnancy rates both decreased.
Phillip B. Levine, Douglas Staiger, Abortion Policy and Fertility Outcomes: The Eastern European Experience, The Journal of Law & Economics,
Fetal development information and required waiting periods lead to less abortion:
Context. —Beginning August 8, 1992, a woman in the state of Mississippi had to wait 24 hours after in-person receipt of state-mandated
A study in Louisiana and Maryland found that laws against abortion were effective at stopping abortions
We examine characteristics and experiences of women who considered, but did not have, an abortion for this pregnancy. Participants were recr
Countries with abortion bans also have dramatically lower maternal mortality compared to other countries in the region with dangerously permissive abortion laws.
“Contrary to the notion proposing a negative impact of restrictive abortion laws on maternal health, the abortion mortality ratio did not increase after the abortion ban in Chile. Rather, it decreased over 96 percent.”
PDF | Improving maternal health and decreasing morbidity and mortality due to induced abortion are key endeavors in developing countries. On
Mexican states that ban and restrict abortion have better MMR than permissive states: “Over the 10-year period, states with less permissive abortion legislation exhibited lower Maternal Mortality Rates than more permissive states.”
Objective To test whether there is an association between abortion legislation and maternal mortality outcomes after controlling for other f
Poland bans all abortion except LotM and has the world’s lowest MMR (2/100000). Malta bans almost all abortions and has MMR of 6/100000
Maternal mortality ratio (modeled estimate, per 100,000 live births) from The World Bank: Data
It also works in reverse. Multiple countries have seen an increase in MMR after legalizing abortion.
Guyana legalized abortion and achieved the worst MMR on the continent. (Compare that to Chile, which has constitutional protections for the unborn and an MMR that dropped by over 96% AFTER abortion was banned.)
The map displayed here shows how Maternal mortality rate varies by country. The shade of the country corresponds to the magnitude of the ind
Ethiopia legalized abortion and it made MMR worse: “Although abortion was not legalised on demand, it was legalised on broad socio-economic grounds: the Center for Reproductive Rights place it in the same category as the UK and Finland which, while not strictly allowing abortion on demand, do allow something close to that in practice.” … “Over the period of legalisation, the proportion of women with septic shock more than doubled, with the same result for organ failure. The proportion admitted to intensive care nearly tripled. Between 2008 and 2014, the percentage of women receiving post-abortion care who have severe complications increased by over 50%, from 7% to 11%. During this time, the proportion of women presenting with organ failure quadrupled, the proportion with peritonitis quintupled, and the proportion with shock nearly doubled.”
LEGALISATION OF ABORTION AND MATERNAL MORTALITY IN ETHIOPIA | Ethiopian Medical Journal
Ireland’s once-stellar MMR also increased after legalizing abortion. (Compare to Poland and Malta with almost total bans and to the UK where abortion is essentially legal in demand up to the second trimester.)
The pattern repeats in Asia. Nepal, where there is no restriction on abortion, has one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates. (The lowest in the region is Sri Lanka, with a rate fourteen times lower than Nepal and very good restrictions on abortion.)
In addition, less people are being lured into abortion under the false impression that it’s “safe and legal”. If any of them die of illegal abortion, it’s because they knowingly committed a crime. There will no longer be cases like 17-year-old Roselle Owens, Sarah Dunn, Tonya Reaves and Cree Erwin-Sheppard (to name a few) who were killed by abortion because they were lied to about the risks.














