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Significant disparities in infant mortality exist between blacks and whites, historically driven by risk for preterm birth and infant death after the neonatal period. During the past several decades, however, a racial gap in rates of congenital anomaly–related deaths has widened. Investigators sought to determine whether differential state Medicaid coverage of pregnancy termination from 1983 through 2004 might explain some of the variance between blacks and whites in anomaly-related deaths.
Black women were twice as likely as white women to have births funded by Medicaid (60% vs. 30%) and were more likely to live in states where Medicaid did not cover pregnancy termination for anomalous fetuses (66% vs. 60%). Black women were 7% more likely …