> which is anomalously high in the US for reasons that even experts in maternal death cannot explain
Doesn’t seem like a mystery that a country who is so “pro-life” they’d rather let women die than properly treat miscarriages has a high maternal death rate.
Abortion has nothing to do with it. Abortion laws vary state to state from very restrictive to very permissive, and even states with much more permissive abortion laws than the majority of Europe, maternal mortality remains higher.
Wisconsin's abortion law is from before the Civil War and its maternal mortality is lower than Massachusetts.
Personally I think it has more to do with access to healthcare and the general physical fitness of your average American compared to your average European but I have no data to back that up.
A miscarriage is not a voluntary abortion. The point is not to criticise these cases specifically, but to point out there is a cultural underpinning to the problem. To treat someone appropriately, you have to respect them and not be constantly afraid that what you’re doing will get you in trouble.
If a doctor is afraid to treat a miscarriage it's because they're worried about abortion laws in their jurisdiction. You can't pretend they're not linked; we should talk about both when we talk about either one.
My point about Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and US maternal mortality vs. Europe stands.
Wisconsin's abortion law was completely irrelevant in the modern era until Roe was overturned, so that's not really a great point. At best, it's incredibly dishonest. Besides, the poster wasn't saying it was because of abortion specifically, but that having such a large population that views women's reproductive health as a political issue, rather than a medical issue, is probably the reason why the US has such poor maternal health outcomes.
Wisconsin's abortion law is from before the Civil War and its maternal mortality is lower than Massachusetts.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/maternal-mortality/mmr-2018-2022-st...
Personally I think it has more to do with access to healthcare and the general physical fitness of your average American compared to your average European but I have no data to back that up.