Why abortion is health care

[ShazzieB]

It’s not just about extreme cases—pregnancy can have a lifelong impact on well-being.

Tiffany was 17 weeks pregnant when her water broke while she walked to her car. The fetus wasn’t viable. Her OB-GYN team recommended an abortion—the standard of care, given the high risk of infection and death associated with her condition. While she considered her options, her blood stopped clotting properly—a possibly deadly complication. Doctors intubated her and rushed her to the ICU for a prolonged stay, where she had an emergency abortion. Without access to abortion, Tiffany would have died.

Tiffany, whose name we have changed, is an extreme example. In conversations around abortion rights, such extreme examples often come up as to why abortion is health care. And it’s true: Abortion can be an acutely lifesaving tool.

But carrying a fetus is inherently risky, even in normal pregnancies. The risk that something will go drastically wrong for the mother in pregnancy, or that there will be harmful lifelong health consequences, is unavoidable: Fundamental evolutionary forces have etched these risks into our genes. If you talk to five pregnant people in the USA, statistically one of them will experience a potentially serious complication, like high blood pressure or gestational diabetes.

Many of us are willing to take our chances, with the support of medical care, for the joy of childbirth. But if laws erase the choicdice to have an abortion, pregnant people will be legally required to put their health, and even lives, at risk. Biology makes sure of that.

Read the rest here: https://slate.com/technology/2022/05/abortion-access-health-care-pregnancy.html

[brer cat]

1. Thanks for posting, ShazzieB.