“Banning abortion does not make pregnant people safer. It just makes them have more risk,” said one New Jersey OB-GYN, commenting on a new study of maternal health care in the U.S. The research compares patient services in states with legal abortion access — like New Jersey — to those with tight abortion restrictions. According to the data, people living where abortion is banned also tend to have less access to good maternal health care overall — and they have higher maternal death rates.
“When you now add restriction to reproductive health services — to abortion services — then that increases the risk of really poor outcomes,” said researcher Dr. Laurie Zephyrin of the Commonwealth Fund. Roxanne Sutocky of the Cherry Hill Women’s Center, said, “This fractured system that we have — state by state by state — where if you live 100 miles away from me, your life expectancy, your pregnancy outcome, is going be drastically different than mine, is just unfathomable.”
