The legalization of abortion in the United States led to the near elimination of deaths from
the procedure.8 Between 1973 and 1997, the mortality rate associated with legal abortion
procedures declined from 4.1 to 0.6 per 100,000 abortions.9 The American Medical
Association’s Council on Scientific Affairs credits the shift from illegal to legal abortion
services as an important factor in the decline of the abortion-related death rate after Roe v.
Wade.10