Abortion is important because it is a core component of reproductive healthcare that directly affects maternal survival, economic stability, and the well-being of families. Its significance spans medicine, public health, and individual life outcomes, with large-scale research documenting measurable differences in health and financial security when people can or cannot access the procedure.
It Is One of the Safest Medical Procedures
Legal abortion in the United States carries a mortality rate of 0.6 deaths per 100,000 procedures. For comparison, the mortality rate for childbirth is 8.8 deaths per 100,000 live births. That makes childbirth roughly 14 times more dangerous than abortion. Overall complications are also less common with abortion than with carrying a pregnancy to term. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the leading professional organization for pregnancy-related medicine, classifies abortion as “essential health care.”
When safe, legal abortion is unavailable, people don’t stop seeking the procedure. Globally, approximately 68,000 women die each year from unsafe abortions, accounting for about 13% of all maternal deaths. Another 5 million are hospitalized annually for complications like severe bleeding and infection, and an estimated 5 million more suffer long-term health consequences. Those deaths leave roughly 220,000 children motherless each year.
Restricting Access Raises Maternal Death Rates
Research from Tulane University’s School of Public Health found that U.S. states with more abortion restrictions had a 7% increase in total maternal mortality compared to states with fewer restrictions. Specific policies carried even steeper consequences: states requiring a licensed physician to perform the procedure had 51% higher total maternal mortality, and states that restricted Medicaid funding for abortion saw 29% higher total maternal mortality.
These numbers reflect deaths not just from unsafe abortions but from the broader effect of forcing people to continue high-risk pregnancies. Conditions like severe preeclampsia, heart failure, uncontrollable bleeding from placental problems, and life-threatening infections during pregnancy all require timely intervention. When abortion is restricted, clinicians may delay or avoid necessary care out of legal uncertainty, and patients with dangerous pregnancies lose a critical treatment option.
The Same Procedures Treat Miscarriage
One of the less visible reasons abortion access matters is that the medications and surgical techniques used for induced abortion are identical to those used for miscarriage management. The drug misoprostol, for example, is the standard treatment for helping the body pass pregnancy tissue after a miscarriage. Vacuum aspiration, a brief surgical procedure, is used both to complete an incomplete miscarriage and to perform an elective abortion.
When abortion is restricted or criminalized, the supply chain for these medications can be disrupted, clinicians may hesitate to use them even for miscarriage, and training programs that teach these techniques shrink. Roughly 10 to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, so restrictions on abortion care ripple outward to affect a much larger group of patients than those seeking to end a pregnancy by choice.
Economic Consequences for People Denied Abortions
The Turnaway Study, a landmark decade-long research project from the University of California, San Francisco, tracked people who received a wanted abortion alongside people who sought one but were turned away because they had passed a clinic’s gestational limit. The differences in economic outcomes were stark and persistent.
Within six months of being denied an abortion, people who carried the pregnancy to term were three times more likely to be unemployed than those who received the procedure. They had nearly four times the odds of living below the federal poverty line. Only 30% of those denied were working full time at the six-month mark, compared to a significantly higher share of those who received the abortion. People denied abortions were also six times more likely to be receiving cash welfare benefits and more than twice as likely to need food assistance.
These gaps did not close quickly. The poverty difference persisted for at least four years, and the need for public assistance programs like food stamps remained significantly higher across the full five-year follow-up period. Throughout that time, people denied abortions consistently reported being unable to afford basic living expenses like food, housing, and transportation at higher rates. Those who received a wanted abortion were more financially stable, set more ambitious life goals, raised children under more stable conditions, and were more likely to have a wanted child later.
Effects on Children and Families
The consequences extend to children as well. When states enacted targeted restrictions on abortion providers, foster care placements rose by 11% compared to states without those restrictions. The increase was driven largely by housing inadequacy, meaning families couldn’t secure stable housing for their children. The effect was disproportionately concentrated among Black children and other racial and ethnic minority children, who saw a 15% increase in foster care entries. These placements carry documented lifelong consequences for children’s mental health, educational attainment, and economic prospects, along with substantial costs for state and federal governments.
Children born to people who wanted but could not obtain an abortion also grow up in households with less financial security. With their parents more likely to be in poverty, unemployed, and reliant on public assistance for years after the birth, these children start life with fewer resources. The Turnaway Study found that people who received an abortion were better positioned to raise existing and future children under more stable conditions.
Why It Matters for Public Health Systems
Abortion access shapes healthcare systems well beyond the procedure itself. When people are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, the demand for prenatal care, delivery services, neonatal care, and postpartum support increases, often in the very communities with the fewest healthcare resources. States with the most restrictive abortion laws also tend to have higher rates of maternal mortality, fewer obstetricians per capita, and more rural hospital closures, creating a compounding problem.
Public assistance programs absorb significant costs as well. The increased reliance on food assistance, cash welfare, and Medicaid among people denied abortions represents a direct fiscal impact. Foster care placements add further expense. Rather than a narrow question about a single medical procedure, abortion access functions as a lever that affects the entire system of maternal health, child welfare, and economic support.