Study: Supreme Court Decisions on COVID-19, Guns and Abortion Linked to Nearly 3,000 Deaths | National News

Three Supreme Court decisions last year related to COVID-19, guns and abortions could result in nearly 3,000 deaths over the next decade, according to a new study.

The research looked at decisions that invalidated the coronavirus vaccine-or-test mandate for large private businesses, voided state laws restricting handgun carry and overturned the constitutional right to abortion.

Data analysis performed from July 2022 to April 2023 found that the ruling against the Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, which prevented the Biden administration from enforcing its COVID-19 vaccine rule for large companies, was associated with more than 1,400 excess deaths and nearly 23,000 hospitalizations in early 2022.

The so-called Bruen decision on the Second Amendment, which upended gun laws across the country, is projected to result in 152 additional firearm-related deaths and 377 injuries each year, according to the study, which was published Thursday in the journal JAMA Network Open.

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade – the nearly half-century old precedent that established a right to an abortion up until a fetus can survive outside of the womb – will prevent more than 30,000 abortions due to bans stemming from the decision. It will result in at least six additional pregnancy-related deaths each year, according to the study.

“The US Supreme Court has issued myriad rulings with ramifications for public health and medical care, but few have drawn such widespread criticism, including from the medical community, or carried such large potential consequences for the health of US citizens as 3 landmark cases that it decided in 2022,” the study authors wrote.

They added that the Supreme Court’s “conservative reshaping in recent years has yielded decisions with substantial impacts on many aspects of life in the US, including health, as we examine here.”

“The findings of this study suggest that these Supreme Court decisions may harm the health of US citizens for years, and possibly decades, to come,” they continued.

The study does have some limitations, including that the Supreme Court decisions will be impacted by future legislative actions and behavioral impacts that could change.