Abortion Saves Women

Abortion care is the freedom to choose your own destiny. It’s the freedom to decide to embark or disembark on a high-risk journey of pregnancy, labor, and delivery. It is a personal decision that should remain between the pregnant woman and the doctor-not the government!

The United States has the highest maternal death rate in the developed world, yet we spend more money on healthcare than any other industrialized country! A 2022 study found that the number one cause of death of pregnant women in the USA is homicide. That’s right, you read it correctly, it’s homicide. Most of these pregnant women are killed in domestic violence incidents. HIPPAA confidentiality laws discourage the media from announcing the pregnancy status of the deceased. Also, the family of the woman may not even know about the pregnancy until after the autopsy results.

This brings attention to another matter. When you are pregnant, you cannot work as much and you become financially dependent on your partner for housing. It is very difficult to leave an abusive partner when you are pregnant. Absolutely in the cases where a woman is with a violent partner, she should leave him immediately. It would make sense under those circumstances that a pregnant woman would not want a child with a violent partner. It would also make sense that a pregnant patient would want to have an abortion in order to cut off all ties with the abusive partner.

When abortion clinics shut down, all pregnant individuals suffer. Frustrated and fearful, Obstetrics/Gynocology doctors choose to move to states where abortion care is legal. This leaves few healthcare options for pregnant women in those states where abortion is banned. Pregnant individuals become financially burdened to travel to obtain reproductive healthcare. The lack of staff in states with abortion bans opens the door for many more pregnant women to die of preventable causes in pregnancy and childbirth.

Women and girls thrive in places where safe abortions are available. Legal abortion is a safe procedure when done in a sterile and clean setting with trained staff. Sterile, legal abortion protects the life of the woman and preserves her ability to have more children in the future.

Every year worldwide tens of thousands of women’s lives would be saved if they had access to safe, legal abortion care. We have all seen those tragic images of desperate women who found unsafe methods of ending an unwanted pregnancy. My mother told me the sad story of her neighbor who died at the age of 40 from a back-alley abortion done in an unsterile environment with untrained staff. She left behind two young children. We can’t return to those days. We cannot go backwards.

Abortion is healthcare. One out of every four women in the USA has received abortion care before these bans were put in place. I am one of those women. Most legal abortions occur before 12 weeks gestation in high income countries where abortion is widely available.

The anti-abortion movement is especially fixated on banning late-term abortions. Why this obsession with late-term abortions? Most of these are ‘wanted’ pregnancies that result in a non-viable fetus. Forcing a woman to carry a non-viable fetus is both physically and psychologically traumatic. Other times there’s some serious health problem suddenly jeapardizing the mother’s life. In these cases, a late-term abortion would be needed immediately without any bureaucratic delay from the courts/government. These late-term abortions should have the same protections as early term ones. However, many states today have outright bans on even early abortions!

Sometimes pregnant women die in hospitals where abortion is illegal. Doctors fearful of being prosecuted, refuse to end a pregnancy even when that person’s life is at risk. We are seeing more cases in the states where abortion is banned.

For my abortion, it was a “wanted” pregnancy that took a devastating turn. My spouse and I were distraught, but we knew that we could try again another time to get pregnant.

I had to find childcare for my first child so I could get abortion care. I was out of state at the time. The local abortion clinic was known to have anti-abortion protestors. Therefore, I opted to have my abortion two hours away to avoid the psychological trauma of walking past hysterical and confused protestors. They would shout verbally abusive statements and medically inaccurate information to pregnant women on their way to receive abortion care. How dare they! Those types of protests should be illegal if they are close enough to cause psychological harm to patients walking by! Some states have restrictions on the number of feet where protests can be located.

Those protestors didn’t even know my name yet they felt the need to waste their Saturday harassing me on my way to a medical procedure? Why? Do they not have any other hobbies or friends to pass the time? Do they not have a life? Why are they so obsessed with forcing women to procreate? We are perfectly capable of making our own choices about our bodies!

I am not ashamed and I am not sorry to have had an abortion. I have no need to explain the difficult situation that I was in at the time. I feel empowered to have made the right decision for myself and my family. After my abortion, I was able to get pregnant again and have a healthy baby.

I am a Christian, Pro-choice and queer. My devout grandmother deeply influenced me. She attended church every day with a veil on her head! My grandmother would always repeat the same phrase, “God doesn’t judge!” She occupied herself collecting food and money for the poor. She joined committees to raise funds for school children. My grandmother “loved her neighbor as herself”. She truly lived Jesus’ principles of humility and compassion. My grandmother would not have joined those misguided protestors by the clinic.

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