Maternal Mortality in the United States After Abortion Bans: Mothers Living in Abortion Ban States at Significantly Higher Risk of Death During Pregnancy and Childbirth

Even before abortion was outlawed, the states that subsequently banned abortion had worse outcomes on key indicators of reproductive health, as reported in The State of Reproductive Health in the United States (January 2023). “Maternal Mortality in the United States After Abortion Bans,” the fourth publication in Gender Equity Policy Institute’s series on Reproductive Health in the United States, presents GEPI’s analysis of 2019-2023 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data on maternal mortality to compare maternal health outcomes in the banned states, the supportive states, and the U.S. overall. The year 2023 is the most recent one for which annual data is publicly available from the CDC. Thirteen states enforced bans for the entirety of this year.