Last week, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) released a study that purportedly shows that recently enacted pro-life laws were causing higher infant mortality rates. The study analyzed the impact of 14 state-level pro-life laws that either effectively banned abortion or protected preborn children after six weeks’ gestation. It considered state-level infant mortality data from 2012 to 2023. This study has received a great deal of uncritical coverage from many mainstream media outlets including the New York Times, CNN, BBC, The Hill, Time, and USA Today.

Not surprisingly, there is less here than meets the eye. The data indicate that overall infant mortality rates increased in 2022 but declined in 2023. Additionally, 2023 saw infant mortality rate declines in both the group of states with strong pro-life laws and the group of states with permissive abortion policies. There is no consistent upward trajectory in infant mortality. Furthermore, infant mortality rate trends appear fairly similar in both groups of states.

Interestingly, the most recent CDC data indicate that overall infant mortality rates continued to fall for the first two quarters of 2024. However, this more recent infant mortality rate data was not analyzed in the JAMA study. Had this additional data been included, the results might well have been different.

Importantly, the statistical evidence is weaker than advertised. Of the 14 states with strong pro-life laws in effect, only one state, Texas, exhibited a statistically significant increase in its maternal mortality rate. In fact, if Texas is excluded, the change in infant mortality rates between states with strong pro-life laws and states with permissive abortion policies fails to achieve statistical significance. In fact, it appears that a short-term increase in the Texas maternal mortality rate in 2022 is distorting the results.

Furthermore, five states with strong pro-life laws exhibited infant mortality rates that were lower than expected for 2023. Lastly, the findings indicate that there was a larger increase in the percentage of congenital deaths than of non-congenital deaths. In short, the reason for a significant fraction of the reported increase infant mortality in pro-life states is that pro-life laws were preventing children with congenital defects from being aborted.

Since, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, pro-abortion researchers have worked overtime to claim that pro-life laws are having a negative impact. They have claimed that people are departing states with strong pro-life laws, but U.S. Census Bureau data tells another story. They claimed that pro-life laws would increase maternal mortality rates, but recent data show that the maternal mortality rate fell by about 17 percent in 2023. This JAMA study is just the latest attempt by pro-abortion researchers and their allies in the mainstream media to mislead people into thinking that pro-life policies are causing a public health crisis.