Anti-Abortion Plays With Women's Lives; Women Often Lose


"No abortions except to save the life of the woman." A version of this sentence is in the laws of some 15 states. What does it mean? The laws do not spell out for a doctor what constitutes danger to a woman. 

The common understanding is that when a woman goes into something called "sepsis shock" her life is in danger and it is lawful in anti-abortion states to do the surgery. The public, including myself and legislators, know little about these cases and the risk involved. There is one statistic, however, that helps us understand. It is that the U.S. has more deaths associated with pregnancy than any other of the high-income countries. Death due to pregnancy is one is the most frequent causes of death in low-income countries. We are better off in the U.S. than the poorest countries in the world but worse off than any those in the higher group.

To understand why we are killing to many pregnant women, it is helpful to have a doctor explain what happens when medical actions that save women's lives are prohibited by religious-based laws.   

A case in the link tells of a woman whose water broke early in the pregnancy. Infection spread very rapidly. Sepsis would have attacked had the woman not received treatment quickly. 

As all competent doctors know, allowing a woman to be in a lift threatening status means the abortion has to be done quickly or death can occur. If this issue were approached rationally, the woman would receive an abortion when conditions threatened to get worse, not after they have become worse. 

If the woman's life is not as valuable as that of the fetus, it can be put at risk. There can be no doubt the woman's life is treated as not valuable when the wording "no abortions unless it is to save the life of the mother." 

Fortunately, the are physicians such as the link author who perform abortions. She has trained at least 100 other doctors to perform abortions. Anti-abortion operatives believe they can scare off doctors and clinics with laws against abortions. From what we have seen so far since Roe was overturned some clinics in some states have been forced to close. Others have opened. There are still plenty of doctors and clinic staff. 

Clinics and doctors have not suffered as much as low-income women since Roe was overturned.  

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 9, 2023 at 4:34 PM

    And that’s what happens when politicians, who are not often the smartest of folks, put themselves in charge of health care. If I could put myself in charge of their healthcare we’d see some changes pretty quickly.

    ReplyDelete

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