No Abortion Limits. Ever.
Pregnancy is too complicated to legislate
The post-Roe stories have been relentless: A Louisiana mother of three denied an abortion, even though her fetus was missing part of its head and skull. A Wisconsin woman who bled for more than 10 days before being treated. A Texas beauty YouTuber forced to carry a dead fetus for weeks. A 10 year old-rape victim.
In response to the nonstop traumatic accounts coming out of anti-choice states, Republicans have started watering down their long-held positions on abortion—worried that furious voters won’t take kindly to politicians whose policies will create even more horror stories. And in an effort to change the conversation, conservatives are pointing to Democrats as the real extremists for what they say will be “no limits” abortion laws.
Republicans think this is their ultimate ‘gotcha’—that Democrats won’t admit that what they really want is no abortion restrictions at all. But that strategy only works if we dodge the question. The truth is that arguing for abortion without legal limitations reinforces one of the most persuasive argument we have: Pregnancy is too complicated to legislate.
We have seen the truth of this every single day since Roe was overturned: The women who create registries for their pregnancies only to be told their fetus is dying, patients forced to wait until their ectopic pregnancies burst a fallopian tube, or until their vaginal discharge is rank enough for a doctor to finally believe they’re in danger of sepsis.
That a person’s body is their own should be enough. But with so many in imminent danger, we need to make the argument that everyone can see is true: There is no law, no policy or mandate, that can morally predict, control, or punish the infinite number of things that can happen when a person is pregnant.
And as Dr. Diane Horvath, an OBGYN at an all-trimester clinic said this week, “Every time we draw a line and we say 'no more abortions after this point,' someone's going to fall on the other side of that line, and they're going to be harmed.”
The conservative response, of course, will be to exclaim, “You see! Abortion until birth!”
We could respond with statistics. Remind them that most abortions happen in the first trimester; that 80 percent of abortions are done before the 10th week of pregnancy, before the embryo becomes a fetus, and that 93 percent are performed before the 13th week. We could point out that abortions done later often come after tragic news is shared about a wanted pregnancy, or are the result of hurdles—waiting periods, lack of funding and access to a clinic—put in place by Republicans themselves.
Pro-choicers have shared these facts before, many times. But those intent on ending all legal abortion don’t really care why or how women end pregnancies, no matter when it happens. Their response will always be the same; they’ll say there are exceptions for those who “really” need abortions, and that their laws will account for those cases.
The last two months have shown us that’s just not true. After Nancy Davis in Louisiana was denied an abortion for her doomed pregnancy—her fetus had a severe abnormality called acephaly—state Sen. Katrina Jackson said the hospital simply “misinterpreted” the state’s exceptions. When Tara George in Ohio found out her fetus wouldn’t survive and that her pregnancy was putting her life at risk, she spent a week trying to find an out-of-state doctor to give her an abortion—her home hospital refused, afraid her case wouldn’t withstand legal scrutiny.
Dr. Jen Villavicencio, from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), says stories like these are “happening every single day.”
“We’re seeing treatment for ectopic pregnancies being stalled until they rupture and become life-threatening,” she told Pew’s Stateline. “We’re seeing people with broken water and fetal parts stuck in their vagina sent home until fetal demise occurs or the patient ends up in the ICU because of infection or bleeding.”
Abortion bans have made it impossible for doctors to provide safe and ethical treatment. Especially when the threat of prison looms over every interaction they have with patients.
In Texas, for example, a mother of four was hospitalized with blood clots that had traveled to her lungs; doctors believed her 14-week pregnancy was causing the life-threatening condition, but refused to even talk to her about abortion. When she begged, telling them, “I have four other kids that need me,” an OBGYN finally responded. But the doctor was too nervous to have a conversation with her; instead, the OBGYN waited until her shift was over and wrote down information about abortion in a book.
Some doctors in states with abortion bans are so discouraged that they’re moving elsewhere. It’s hard to blame them, but these medical exoduses will add to the danger that women are in.
This is no time for equivocating. We need to fight for full access to abortion. And we can do so without losing the messaging war.
Conservatives’ “abortion up until birth” attack may be graphic, but it’s not based in reality: It assumes women are cruelly waiting around for the opportunity to end a pregnancy as late as is legally possible. We need to ask Republicans, Does that sound like any of the women you know? Is this what you think women are like? Let them say it out loud.
When conservatives say our objective is ‘no limits abortion,’ counter with the truth: The goal is a culture that supports people throughout their pregnancies, no matter how long they last or how they end. Sometimes that means helping someone become a parent, ensuring they have access to safe and unbiased prenatal care. Sometimes it means taking a friend to get an abortion a few weeks after a missed period, or securing compassionate care for a raped and impregnated child.
We want a country where a devastated woman who has received tragic news about her pregnancy doesn’t have to put her grief on hold for a week so she can find a doctor. A country where a teenager doesn’t have to convince a judge that she’s responsible enough not to have a baby. And yes, a country where if someone needs an abortion later in their pregnancy—for whatever reason—that they are able to do so.
Because we trust women. And we know that what happens during pregnancy is complicated, personal and impossible to dictate by law.
I completely agree - once we start legislating when women can get an abortion, first we are making laws about something that should be simple medical care (like removing a burst appendix - no law necessary, doctors will just do it if you need it) and second, it will put some women outside the permitted exceptions. No one has an abortion on a whim at 30 weeks, but I feel increasingly like we need to stake out the ground which says, 'Who cares if they do? So what?' No one should have to remain pregnant if they don't want to be, and the number of women in the first few weeks of pregnancy who don't want a baby totally eclipses the miniscule, insignificance number who have late abortions (and who cares if they abort late anyway, because who gets to decide if your reason for the abortion is good enough?).
Sigh. So very true; if only this could be the end result of this crisis. I fear it requires more than our Democratic politicians have shown they're capable of. Or perhaps the failing really is in the deep-rooted misogyny of the American electorate instead. Either way I would desperately love to be proven wrong and delightfully surprised.