Vice President Kamala Harris repeated a common pro-abortion talking point that laws against killing preborn babies are to blame for high maternal mortality rates.

“The top ten states with the highest rates of maternal mortality all have abortion bans,” Harris said recently as part of the White House’s “Reproductive Freedoms Tour.”

“The hypocrisy abounds. And let us be clear about what they’re up to. These extremists want to roll back the clock, to a time before women were treated as full citizens,” Harris said.

The vice president appears to be suggesting abortion bans contribute to high maternal mortality rates while also saying pro-lifers should be more concerned about women dying from birth.

It is true that Republican-led states that tend to favor more protections for preborn children also have high maternal mortality rates. The claim presumably comes from a 2022 study by the pro-abortion Commonwealth Fund.

States such as Alabama and Arkansas have the highest rates, according to the Centers for Disease Control, whose data covers 2018-2021. Not all states have reported data, however. Furthermore, states such as Utah that favor protections for preborn babies have better maternal mortality rates than pro-abortion states such as New Jersey and New Mexico.

There are other problems with the vice president’s claim as well. As Professor Michael New pointed out in 2022 at National Review, abortion was practically legal in all 50 states prior to the Dobbs v. Jackson decision in 2022. Yet the Commonwealth study relies on data from 2018 to 2020. New data also show maternal mortality has fallen post-Dobbs.

The study also “fails to control for important confounding variables such as per capita income or poverty rates,” according to the Catholic University of America social scientist.

“Indeed, the main reason why pro-life states fare worse on some [public health] metrics is that many of them are southern states, which tend to have lower per capita incomes and higher poverty rates,” New wrote. “Research shows that high incomes are linked with better public-health outcomes.”

Pregnant women and their babies deserve high-quality healthcare, but the fact some states have worse outcomes can never support abortion.

Abortion is the direct and intentional killing of an innocent human baby, and problems in the healthcare system or complications post-pregnancy will never justify ending human life.

Like many health problems, there are different factors that can affect maternal mortality. Some are infrastructure-based: Women in rural areas may not have the same access to prenatal specialists as those in suburbs or cities.

Others can be based on personal decisions: Obesity, smoking, and substance abuse can heighten pregnancy problems. Nearly 25% of maternal deaths are attributable to suicide or substance abuse post-birth.

Notably, the White House was closer to some of the main drivers of maternal mortality in a proclamation last year on “Black Maternal Health Week.” President Joe Biden suggested healthcare providers don’t listen to black women when they have “pregnancy complications” or other health problems.

He also noted “barriers traveling to the hospital for prenatal and postpartum checkups” and unstable housing. He is  he is right in diagnosing some of the contributors to maternal mortality; and it is also true  that medical professionals, intentionally or not, do sometimes have an arrogance problem that leads them not to listen to patients of all races and both sexes.

Society can work to support pregnant women, new moms, and families without killing innocent preborn babies.

A society that says it wants to protect human life but lets preborn babies get killed is one where, as our vice president would say, “hypocrisy abounds.”