A recent study from CORE researchers, led by Jenna Nobles, finds that every single year in the United States, pregnant people experience more than 1 million miscarriages, with nearly 400,000 of those miscarriages occurring in states with current abortion bans or restrictions. The study highlights how legal restrictions on abortion compromise health care for these Americans experiencing miscarriage, causing adverse effects on patients’ health outcomes and health care costs.
Because miscarriage and abortion involve similar clinical care, legal restrictions on abortion care:
- Have created mounting challenges for U.S. patients requiring miscarriage care.
- Have reduced the quality of miscarriage care in the U.S.
- Stand to further widen reproductive health disparities in under-resourced states.
Nearly 400,000 miscarriages occur each year in U.S. states with abortion bans or restrictions. New research shows that legal restrictions on abortion compromise health care for these Americans experiencing miscarriage.
The researchers point to the availability of mifepristone, a medication widely used in both miscarriage management and abortion care, as an example of the spillover effects of abortion policy.
Mifepristone has been repeatedly challenged in court, including in a recent U.S. Supreme Court case, despite being the most effective form of medical miscarriage management — and the form recommended for care by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. More challenges are expected.
If future legal and policy challenges lead to restrictions on mifepristone, the study authors estimate that each year, up to 35% of first-trimester miscarriages could be managed with suboptimal medical care. This would affect hundreds of thousands of Americans annually. For some, the risks are serious, and include avoidable procedures and life-threatening infection.
“The safest and most cost-effective form of medical management for thousands of Americans will not be available,” the authors write.
The study was conducted by Jenna Nobles, a professor of demography, as well as UW ob-gyn physicians and CORE investigators Eliza Bennett and Laura Jacques.