Of Course Infant Mortality Spiked After Dobbs
That is what happens when you force people to give birth to babies that are not viable.
An unsurprising yet depressing new study has revealed that, after the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the infant mortality rate was even higher than expected — which is really saying something given that we already had a higher infant mortality rate than every other high-income country on the planet.
In the study, published in JAMA on Monday, epidemiology professors Dr. Parvati Singh and Dr. Maria Gallo of the Ohio University of Public Health compared the nation’s previous infant mortality rates to the infant mortality rates for the 18 months following the Dobbs decision.
“Infant mortality was higher than expected, overall and among those with congenital anomalies, for several months after the Dobbs decision in the US,” they wrote. “No post-Dobbs months (ie, no months after June 2022) showed lower than expected infant mortality. These findings are consistent with the increase in infant mortality found in Texas following the state's abortion ban.”
WHY YES WE DID WRITE ABOUT THAT HERE.
In the months that infant mortality was higher than expected – October 2022, March 2023 and April 2023 – rates were about 7% higher than typical, leading to an average of 247 more infant deaths in each of those months.
About 80% of those additional infant deaths could be attributed to congenital anomalies, which were higher than expected in six of the 18 months following the Dobbs decision, according to the new research. Congenital anomalies can range from mild to severe cases, and some of the most common types can affect an infant’s heart or spine. In some cases, babies with a birth defect may only survive a few months.
The study did not make mention of the impact of ob-gyns leaving the abortion ban states in droves or the maternity wards that have closed in these states, making it difficult for those with wanted, viable pregnancies to get the care they need — though surely that’s a factor as well.
This is the kind of thing that can cause a lifetime of trauma. Watching the baby you just gave birth to die in your arms or going through a stillbirth is not the kind of thing people just get over and quickly move on from. It’s not nothing. It’s hard enough to have to end a wanted pregnancy because of a lethal fetal anomaly, but to be forced to continue in the pregnancy through birth is pure cruelty.
I do think we need to understand that this was not an unexpected result from the anti-abortion rights end, either. They knew this was going to happen, just as we did — they just also feel like this is an opportunity for them to get to see a miracle that will reaffirm their faith in God (and possibly convert the parents), and they are willing to make as many women suffer as they need to in order to make that possible.
Like so many other scenarios (the “good guy with a gun,” the poor person “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps”), the promise of an unlikely but cinematically satisfying storyline allows them to overlook and dismiss any other pain and anguish their policies might cause — and, in fact, believe that once people see them in all their majesty, cause others to agree with them that it really was worth it all along. Kind of the way we expect that at least some of them will see the horrific impact of these laws on so many women and rethink their support of the bans, except for how that would actually make sense.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Dear Republicans,
Unless y'all figure out some way to punish MEN for contributing to the "abortion problem," then kindly shut the fuck up and leave the decisions about women's bodies to, y'know, WOMEN.
Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, you fucking idiots.
No love,
EQ
I watched my daughter hold her baby as the baby took her last breath. It was heartbreaking. I will never get over it.
But cruelty is the point. The forced birthers don't care about the pain of the parents. They don't care about anything but their own distorted morals.