Pro-abortion writer Jessica Valenti has accused both me and Ramesh of distorting her comments regarding abortion bans and maternal mortality. She states that her comments about rising maternal mortality rates only pertain to states that have enacted strong pro-life laws. She goes on to say that our use of CDC maternal mortality rate data is misleading because national data includes states that have permissive abortion policies.
Now in her statements regarding maternal mortality, Valenti has not been particularly nuanced. When Valenti was on Molly Jong Fast’s podcast Fast Politics, she never differentiated between “pro-life” states and other states; she simply claimed that since Dobbs “the maternal mortality rate is going up.”
However, taking Valenti’s correction at face value — there is no hard data that the maternal mortality rate is increasing in states with strong pro-life laws. That is because the CDC has not released state level maternal mortality rate data since Dobbs. Now in her response to me Valenti claims that when Texas passed an abortion ban, the maternal mortality increased by 56 percent.
However, this is incorrect. Valenti obtained that figure from a Gender Equity Policy Institute analysis that was never peer-reviewed. While the analysis did show rising maternal mortality rates in Texas in 2020 and 2021, it also showed the Texas maternal mortality rate fell by more than 35 percent in 2022 – the year the Texas abortion ban took effect. Taking the data at face value, there was no consistent upward trajectory in the maternal mortality rate. Furthermore, the year Texas’ strongest pro-life law took effect, maternal mortality actually fell.
Since the Dobbs decision, Valenti and other supporters have tried to make the case that pro-life laws worsen public health outcomes. While they have worked hard to amplify some cherry-picked data points, they have not found much Overall, both maternal mortality rates and infant mortality rates have declined since Dobbs. A recent JAMA Network Open study found larger increases in practicing OBGYNs in states with pro-life laws than in states where abortion is legally protected. Overall, strong pro-life laws are often coupled with good public health outcomes.