Yes, They Want You Dead

To anti-choice politicians, women dying isn’t collateral damage—it’s just our job

“The death of a beautiful woman [is] unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.” ~Edgar Allan Poe

In Missouri, a Republican lawmaker has proposed an anti-abortion bill that would make it illegal to end ectopic pregnancies—a life-threatening condition in which a fertilized egg implants in a fallopian tube. Rep. Brian Seitz claims the legislation has been “misrepresented” (it was not) and says he will amend the language. 

This isn’t the first time a politician has tried to outlaw treatment for ectopic pregnancies, nor the first time anti-abortion legislation would make it illegal to seek life-saving care. For years, Republicans have created abortion bans with no exception for the health and life of the pregnant person, and pushed laws that we know—from our own country’s history and other countries’ current reality—would kill people. 

Whenever feminists point out the inevitable deaths that accompany abortion bans, conservatives claim it’s a pro-choice fabrication—a scare tactic with no basis in reality. We’re assured that women won’t really die seeking illegal abortions, or that ending a pregnancy is never necessary to save a woman’s life. (Both arguments are demonstrably untrue.)

And when it comes to bills like the one in Missouri, when a male legislator is completely ignorant of the way that pregnancy and bodies work, it’s often framed as if women’s health was an afterthought. It’s not really that these men don’t care if women die, it’s that they were too stupid to realize it was a possibility. 

I’m so tired of these people being given the benefit of the doubt. Of course they know that women will die. They can read statistics; they can see what’s happened before and will happen again. For fuck’s sake, they’ve carefully crafted laws that give us less rights than a zygote in a country where pregnancy is 20 times more likely to kill you than skydiving! 

And it’s not just that Republican legislators see women dying as an unfortunate but acceptable consequence of making abortion illegal. In the conservative imagination, the most noble thing a pregnant woman can do is die so that a fetus can live. 

There’s a reason anti-choice groups valorize women who refuse life-saving treatment so that their pregnancies can come to term. And why our culture does the same thing more broadly, highlighting stories of pregnant women who decline cancer care or forgo other treatment that could save their life. Those who put the health of their pregnancy above their own lives are martyred, depicted as the ultimate mothers and perfect women.

To the politicians pushing anti-choice laws, women dying isn’t collateral damage—it’s just our job. They believe that if we were real mothers and real women, we’d give up anything for pregnancy: Our education, our finances, our safety, our health and even our lives. 

It’s a belief so strong they’ve enshrined it into law.

So why mince words? Why call abortion rights a difference of opinion or an issue up for debate? This is about a group of people who believe women exist to give birth, and that anything we do that deviates from that expectation makes us unnatural—and ultimately expendable. 

So, no: It’s not an exaggeration to say that the people who create these laws want us dead. They know what their policies have done and will do. 

And we know what they really think of women. That’s why when feminists fight to make sure abortion remains legal and accessible, we’re not just fighting for ‘choice’ or for our rights and our bodies—we’re fighting for our lives.