A Johns Hopkins Study Found a 9% Rise in Pregnancy Deaths in States That Banned Abortion
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health analyzed national vital statistics from 2016 to 2023 and found a potential 9% increase in pregnancy-associated deaths in the 14 states that imposed abortion bans after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022. That translates to roughly 68 more women dying by the end of 2023 than the researchers’ models predicted.
The increase appeared during pregnancy itself, not during labor or in the postpartum period, which the researchers note is consistent with the mechanism they were examining: women unable to end pregnancies complicated by serious health conditions who then died of those complications.
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But the researchers were explicit about what the data does show. States that banned abortion saw a divergence in pregnancy death trends compared to states that kept abortion legal, and that divergence began after the bans took effect. The timing is consistent with the bans being a contributing cause, even if the study cannot prove causation.
The underlying logic is not speculative. Pregnancy carries measurable medical risk. Abortion carries substantially lower risk. When women who would otherwise have ended pregnancies are instead required to continue them, the statistical consequence is a higher number of pregnancy-related deaths. A 2022 study in JAMA Network Open found that childbirth in the U.S. was 44 to nearly 70 times deadlier than abortion from 2018 to 2021.
For women with pre-existing conditions, the equation is sharper. Those with chronic hypertension, diabetes, autoimmune conditions, or cardiac disease face substantially elevated pregnancy risk. ProPublica has documented multiple cases of women in abortion ban states who were denied terminations despite serious health conditions and later died. The bans, in most states, include narrow exceptions for life-threatening emergencies, but physicians have described uncertainty about how and when those exceptions apply, leading to delayed care.
The Johns Hopkins study is among the first to attempt to quantify the ban’s effect at the population level. Researchers said the findings point to the need for urgent policy attention to the maternal health consequences of abortion restrictions and called for stronger postpartum monitoring in ban states as a partial mitigation measure.
The U.S. already had one of the highest maternal mortality rates of any high-income country before Dobbs. These findings suggest the gap may be widening in states where abortion is no longer available.
Source: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, April 2026. Analysis of national vital statistics data from 2016 to 2023 across states with and without abortion bans.