Data from New York City show a striking decline (26.4% over 10 years) in infant mortality starting in 1965 with the advent of family planning services and improved medical care for mother and infant. This downward trend in infant mortality has been accelerated since the implementation of liberalized abortion in 1970. Other findings include a marked reduction in fertility, especially among the very young and older women, reduction in low birth weight births, out-of-wedlock births, and births to women of low socioeconomic class, all high risk situations. At a time when it is fashionable to say that we are making no progress in the quality of life, there are some things that are getting better. Whether these decreases in infant mortality are entirely due to medical care is not so clear, but at least the combination of maternity care, family planning, and abortion has been associated with an improvement of major degree.
Sixth annual conference on venereal disease, family planning and human sexuality