Report: Infants fare better when abortion is restricted

Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, there have been a number of pro-abortion claims positing that pro-life laws are harmful to women and their babies. One such claim, based on a 2024 study, suggested that a pro-life law in Texas was responsible for a rise in infant deaths.

A recent essay, "Abortion and Infant Mortality: Termination Does Not Prevent Death," published in The New Bioethics, countered that idea. The essay authors, researcher Nicholas Colgrove and Monica Snyder, executive director of Secular Pro Life, set out to prove that abortion restrictions benefit infants and don't contribute to an increase in infant mortality.

Key Takeaways:  

• An essay published in The New Bioethics counters a 2024 study that said Texas's pro-life protections had led to an increase in infant deaths.

• The essay authors, Nicholas Colgrove and Monica Snyder, argued that the law resulted in 10,000 more births and was therefore a positive for infants.

• They also argued that the law helps reduce ableist assumptions of those in the medical community who encourage abortion after a prenatal diagnosis, and it benefits families who do not undergo the trauma of abortion.

The Backstory:

In 2024, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) attempted to blame a Texas law protecting preborn children from abortion, SB 8, for an increase in the state's total number of infant mortalities in 2022. Study authors Alison Gemmill et al claimed that “abortion restrictions may have negative spillover effects on infant health."

More infants died at birth, they claimed, because they weren't killed in the womb.

Pro-abortion media took that claim and ran with it. In the days following the study's release, for example, USA Today stated, “[Texas’] near-total ban on abortion appears to have triggered an increase in infant deaths[.]”

Live Action researcher Bettina di Fiore pointed out that the infant mortality rate (the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births) was the same in 2022 and 2016, and that the infant mortality rate for 2022 was “well within historical norms.”

"The key change, from a statistical standpoint, is the manner in which these deaths are reported," di Fiore wrote. "Before SB8, they were reported as abortion statistics, but now, they are reported as infant/neonatal deaths."

The full Live Action News analysis is found here.

The Details:

Researcher Nicholas Colgrove and Monica Snyder, executive director of Secular Pro-Life, have issued their own response to the faulty study. 

The duo argued that though all infant deaths are tragic, abortion restrictions actually benefit, not harm, infants.

The authors surmised:

“One can reduce teenage deaths by causing deaths before age thirteen, but this does not save lives. Likewise, abortion restrictions may lead to more infants dying (since fewer subjects are aborted), but this does not imply that abortion restrictions harm infants.”

Abortion restrictions are a positive for infants

The authors pointed out that due to Texas's pro-life law, there were 10,000 additional births in the state in 2022. This already implies that the law had a net benefit for infants, since without it, there would be 10,000 fewer individuals.

They wrote:

So, when Gemmill et al. (and their commentators) state that abortion restrictions are bad for infants, these statements rely on contentious assumptions. Worse, for Gemmill et al.’s discussion of ‘congenital anomalies,’ is that it also relies on (or, at least, overlooks) major ableist assumptions.

Abortion restrictions reduce ableist assumptions

Colgrove and Snyder argued that abortion restrictions are beneficial because they minimize the ableist mindset of those who would encourage abortion due to a prenatal diagnosis. Sadly, that mindset pervades the medical community, as many parents are encouraged to choose abortion if their child has an "anomaly."

According to Gemmill et al., there was a 22.9% increase in infants born with "anomalies" in 2022. However, that study did not distinguish between life-compatible conditions and life-limiting conditions, and it also failed to take into account that not every parent wants to abort a child with a prenatal diagnosis.

As Colgrove and Snyder pointed out, a flaw with the study is that "under abortion restrictions, it is not clear whether people were 'forced to continue pregnancies' or whether providers simply lost the power to pressure them into aborting."

Colgrove and Snyder's report referenced a study by Meredith et al. (2024), which found that the majority of medical providers displayed bias when offering a prenatal diagnosis, thereby "perpetuating harmful societal stereotypes about people" with disabilities, and assuming that life with a disability would be "bad news." This created "lasting trauma to parents" and limited "the information and prenatal care they need[ed] at a vulnerable time."

They also pointed out that when infants are not killed in the womb, there is the opportunity for them to receive medical treatment they would not have otherwise gotten. Sometimes, that medical treatment has a positive impact on the child.

"In sum, judging that abortion restrictions are harmful to infants with 'congenital anomalies' requires several assumptions," they wrote, continuing:

First, that congenital anomalies are uniformly ‘lethal.’ Second, that life with disability would be worse than death in utero. Third, that a given infant’s suffering in infancy would likely be worse than suffering they would experience during an abortion. Fourth, one must assume that mercy killing is permissible. Each of these assumptions is contentious, but Gemmill et al. neither acknowledge nor defend them. Thus, their claim that abortion restrictions are harmful to infants with ‘congenital anomalies’ is unsubstantiated.

Abortion Restrictions as a benefit for families

Though the Gemmill study surmised that "babies that died shortly after being born with birth defects probably caused a lot of unnecessary trauma to families," Colgrove and Snyder noted that this is pure speculation. They explained that Gemmill failed to consider the traumatic impact abortion can have on a mother's mental health, and they also pointed out that abortion doesn't prevent an infant from dying — it just changes the location and means of death.

As Live Action News has pointed out, studies have shown that women who abort children with congenital anomalies and/or prenatal disability diagnoses are at increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder and emotional trauma than women who carry these pregnancies to term.

The Bottom Line:

The duo said that more needs to be done to support those who choose life for their child, especially when that child has a "congenital anomaly" or a disability. They also advocated for the need to combat ableist assumptions within the medical community, so that parents feel supported as they navigate caring for their infant.

The essay concluded by reiterating that Texas's abortion restrictions are a net benefit for infants, and that "abortion cannot reasonably be regarded as beneficial to subjects who are aborted."

Moving forward, therefore, we hope to promote bipartisan cooperation in the service of preventing infant death sensibly. Sensible approaches will work at preventing infant deaths by saving infants’ lives. Killing subjects prior to infancy, by contrast, is not a sensible approach, as it does not save any such lives.