The GOP's C-Section Plan

They'd rather torture women than admit abortion is healthcare

Back in January, I wrote about how Republicans wanted women with life-threatening pregnancies to be forced into c-sections instead of having quicker, safer—and medically standard—abortions. That’s right: they wanted to force women whose lives were already endangered to have major abdominal surgery rather than a ten minute procedure. At the time, I got quite a few messages from folks telling me there was no way this was going to happen—that doctors would never do it.

Well, a new report out of Louisiana shows that that’s exactly what’s happening. Usually I like to be right. Not this time.

Yesterday, Lift Louisiana published a report showing the absolutely nauseating impact the state’s ban is having on maternal health and pregnancy care. It outlines women being denied miscarriage treatment and care for ectopic pregnancies, delays in prenatal care, women being forced into major abdominal surgeries like c-sections, and the way that the state’s ban is nullifying the EMTALA—federal law requiring life-saving and stabilizing care, even if it means providing an abortion.

As you can imagine, the people this is impacting most are those from marginalized communities, and Black women in particular.

All of it is a nightmare, every bit of care denied. But it was the forced c-sections that took my breath away. The report details one case, for example, where a woman’s water broke 20 weeks into her pregnancy—far too early for a fetus to survive. In order to “preserve the appearance of not doing an abortion,” the doctor performed a c-section.

As NPR notes, this patient was not given a choice. She was forced into the surgery. From a Louisiana emergency medicine physician:

“What that means is now this person has had a c-section, right? And that means that she’s at higher risk for any future pregnancies. She can no longer deliver vaginally ... [T]he appropriate thing to do, again would be a D&E…without subjecting the patient to this unnecessary abdominal surgery. But my colleague didn’t feel like she could do that while remaining in compliance with the law or appearing to remain in compliance with the law.”

Remember, Louisiana’s abortion ban is one of the strictest in the nation, and doctors who perform abortions could face 15 years in prison. The report quotes a maternal-fetal medicine specialist about the depths of fear among medical providers:

“Our attorney general, Jeff Landry, sent us all a letter saying, ‘I will put you in jail if you break these rules.’ Literally, I am out to get you, so don’t break these rules. So, you do feel a little bit like there’s a target on your back because you want to do what’s right for the patient. And these aren’t situations that happen infrequently, these aren’t clinical scenarios that happen once a year. They happen all the time. Every time I’m on call, I have a patient that’s considered to potentially be in a life-or death situation”

The report also details patients denied abortions even though they had life-threatening cardiac conditions, and others who couldn’t get treatment despite having cancer because they weren’t “going to die right away.”

This may be extreme and shocking, but it should not be surprising. We knew this was coming and—as I laid out in my January article— that anti-abortion groups planned for it.

They are desperate to divorce abortion from health care. Specifically, they want Americans to believe that abortion is never necessary to protect or save someone’s life and health. By mandating that doctors give women c-sections or induce vaginal labor, they think they can make that talking point true.

The Charlotte Lozier Institute, for example—one of the nation’s largest and best-funded anti-abortion groups—explicitly recommends that treatment for emergency abortions “be done by labor induction or c-section,” which they call “medically standard.” (It is not.)

The group also says that c-sections are “a more appropriate method of separation” because it “shows greater respect for the human dignity of the fetus, even if she is too young or sick to survive.”

Dignity for women isn’t mentioned.

Again: this is all in service of a political talking point. That’s why anti-abortion lobbyists and legislators are trying to change the definition of ‘abortion’ and why they’re torturing women with unnecessary surgeries. They want to ‘prove’ that abortions aren’t medically necessary—and they’re willing to risk our lives, health, bodies and more in service of that message.

That these c-sections are being performed at all is a horror, but that organizations are recommending them in service of a fucking talking point is unforgivable.

Please read the full report here and support Lift Louisiana here.