Legal abortions and trends in fetal and infant mortality rates in the United States.

Using states as the units for analysis, we found no evidence that during the early 1970s in the United States the legalization of abortions influenced trends in infant mortality rates. If fetal deaths were reduced by legal abortions during that period then the influence was modest and brief. These conclusions differ substantially from all earlier studies of the relationship between legal abortions and pregnancy outcomes in the United States which examined trends in areas with many legal abortions while ignoring areas with relatively few legal abortions.