摘要：US infant death rates for 1960 to 1980 declined most quickly in (1) 1970 to 1973 in states that legalized abortion in 1970, especially for infants in the lowest 3 income quintiles (annual percentage change = −11.6; 95% confidence interval = −18.7, −3.8), and (2) the mid-to-late 1960s, also in low-income quintiles, for both Black and White infants, albeit unrelated to abortion laws. These results imply that research is warranted on whether currently rising restrictions on abortions may be affecting infant mortality. As restrictions increase on access to abortion in the United States, 1,2 it is timely to revisit and build on previous research that examined whether US infant mortality rates were affected by 1960s and 1970s policies that expanded access to abortion. 3–8 Consistent with a reproductive justice framework, 9,10 we hypothesized that between 1960 and 1980, the steepest annual percentage declines in the infant death rate would occur among US states that legalized abortion in 1970, relative to states that decreased restrictions or kept abortion strictly illegal prior to national legalization of abortion in 1973, 11 with the largest changes for infants born in low-income counties. A corollary was that state abortion law status would be less associated with mid- to late-1960s declines in infant mortality attributed by previous research 6,12–19 to beneficial economic and social changes spurred by passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and by the War on Poverty, 20,21 especially among low-income infants, both Black and White.
