Abortion Bans Have Not Stopped Miscarriage Care for Women

Last week, the American Journal of Public Health published a study analyzing miscarriage care. It purportedly found that pro-life laws are worsening the quality of care given to women who miscarry pregnancies.

Specifically, it claimed that in pro-life states, women who miscarry are more likely to do so without any medical treatment. This study has been reported on by a number of outlets that cover public health including Stateline, MedPage Today, Science News, and the 19th News.

The study obtains medical data on over 123,000 miscarriages that took place between January 2018 and September 2024 from a large database of insurance claims. It compares miscarriage care in 14 states that either banned abortion or enacted a Heartbeat Act to 17 other states with permissive abortion policies. It holds constant a variety of factors including age, rurality, and location of diagnosis.

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The study is analytically rigorous. However, it does contain a significant methodological flaw. It wrongly assumes that all of the state-level pro-life laws took effect when the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision was issued in June 2022. This is not the case. The Texas Heartbeat Act took effect in September 2021 — ten months before Dobbs. Additionally, Idaho, Kentucky, and Tennessee did not start to consistently enforce their abortion bans until August 2022. West Virginia did not start to consistently enforce an abortion ban until September 2022. Finally, North Dakota’s pro-life law did not take effect until April 2023.

LifeNews.com Note: Dr. Michael New is a professor at Ave Maria University. He is a former political science professor at the University of Michigan–Dearborn and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is a fellow at Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey.