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  5. The Impact of Legal Abortion on Maternal Mortality

The Impact of Legal Abortion on Maternal Mortality

  • Sherajum Monira Farin
  • Lauren Hoehn-Velasco
  • Michael F. Pesko
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (Forthcoming)

Abstract

Legal abortion has recently been suggested as an essential healthcare service. In this study, we consider whether abortion legalization over 1969–1973 improved women’s health, measured by maternal mortality. Our event-study results indicate that legal abortion substantially lowered non-white maternal mortality by 30–50%, with 134 non-white maternal deaths averted nationally in the first year abortion became legal. We also find that early state-level legalizations were crucial, and more influential than the Roe v. Wade decision itself.

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