(LifeSiteNews) — Women who kill their preborn baby are at a greater risk of “severe maternal morbidity,” according to a new peer-reviewed study.
Scholars with the Charlotte Lozier Institute reviewed Medicaid data on nearly 1.8 million women, with a particular focus on those who lost their first baby either through miscarriage or abortion.
“Prior pregnancy loss is associated with modest but consistent elevation in severe maternal morbidity during a subsequent delivery,” the study found. “The association may reflect shared underlying maternal risk, effects related to prior loss, or both.”
Abortion in particular can cause problems for women when they deliver their first live baby. The killing of preborn babies does not promote the health of the mother, as activists claim, but may actually be putting them at greater risk.
“A history of abortions increased the risk of [severe maternal morbidity] by about 20% and increased the risk of C-sections in a subsequent first delivery by 12%,” the researchers wrote in a news release.
An OB/GYN who co-authored the study provided original comments to LifeSiteNews about the ramifications of the findings.
“Abortions aren’t ‘safe,’ despite what abortion advocates may say, and they carry significant risk for the mother while ending unborn life,” Dr. Donna Harrison told LifeSiteNews via a media statement.
“Later abortions, especially those taking place in the second half of pregnancy, carry even greater risks, including hemorrhage, infection, damage to adjacent organs, heart attacks, and death,” she said. “The CDC documented a 38% increase in mortality for each week that an abortion is performed beyond eight weeks.”
It is important, Harrison said, for medical professionals to inform women and understand the risks miscarriages and abortions can carry for future pregnancies.
“When an OB-GYN knows that a woman has a history of miscarriage or abortion, that OB-GYN can keep a closer eye on her through her prenatal care to detect and prevent problems,” Harrison said.
Co-author David Reardon also pointed out there are other known consequences for women who kill their preborn babies.
“This is an avoidable risk factor, and women considering abortion should be warned of this risk along with the elevated risk of premature death and harms to their mental health,” he stated in a news release.
Abortion has also been linked to mental health problems, as alluded to by Reardon. Though no abortion could ever be justified, these academic studies and the testimonies of post-abortive women undermine pro-abortion claims that women benefit emotionally from killing their babies.
One study in 2013 found “a clear link between abortion and subsequent mental illnesses like depression, substance abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”
Post-abortion syndrome (PAS) is also well-established by the testimony of post-abortive women and counselors.
A Catholic University of America and Ruth Institute study found almost half of post-abortive women reported moderate (20.7 percent) to high (24.1 percent) post-abortion distress (PAD) related to their abortion(s), including “frequent feelings of loss, grief or sadness” (31.2 percent) and “frequent thoughts, dreams, or flashbacks” (24.6 percent).
As LifeSiteNews reported at the time:
The findings explicitly refute the often-cited “Turnaway Study” claim, based on a non-representative clinic sample, that any post-abortion distress a woman may have is mild and disappears after about two years.
In fact, “women with long-ago abortions were just as likely to be distressed as were women with recent abortions. Like a traumatic event such as sexual abuse, for some women distress did not manifest until later, and for many persisted, even grew, often for decades,” Sullins told LifeSiteNews via email. “Distressed post-abortive women expressed several of the clinical indicators of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS).”
A separate academic study published in 2025 by Reardon similarly found nearly 40 percent of women who have suffered pregnancy loss, either through abortion or miscarriage, report continuing intense grief even 20 years afterward.