I was reading about the current Supreme Court case over Idaho’s abortion ban and the Federal Law requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortions. Idaho’s ban only allows abortions to save the woman’s life and not to protect her health. The issue is that this is not an easy nor clear cut call. It is often a judgement call. Further, letting a health issue go on can also result in the woman’s death. Just maybe not at that moment.
Reading this and considering the similar issue we had here in Texas in which the Texas Supreme Court supported a draconian understanding of the abortion ban, it struck me that the anti-choice people, in addition to having a poor knowledge of the medical side of abortions and why they might be needed, also have a very poor and unrealistic view of both women and doctors. The way they try to strictly limit any decision making on the part of either also makes me think that they believe that abortion is popular with both.
For example, unlike in any other medical question, they try to take this judgement call totally out of the hands of the doctors and their patients. During the time our Texas ban was being played out in court I saw several Anti-choicers say that the mother’s life was not in immediate danger and so she did not qualify for the exception. Or that it was not certain that her life was in danger. That the abortion should not be given until the mother’s end was certain and soon.
From such things I get the impression that the Anti-Choicers believe that every woman actively wants to have an abortion. They go out and get pregnant just so they can then get an abortion. Some, the real thrill seekers, will wait until their eight month or so to get one. After all, everyone knows how much fun being pregnant is. And then the rush of having that abortion after carrying that child for 8 months! After all, it’s my body and I’ll do what I want with it, and I think having an abortion would be fun!
Oh, and the doctors. I get the impression that instead of trying to do what is best of the woman they think doctors just love to give abortions. Oh dear Mrs. Watson. You have a bad case of acne. You need an abortion. I’m guessing that they think doctors get frequent abortion points from the AMA. Or that they have an oh, I need extra money to buy a new car, so let me find a pregnant woman to perform an abortion on. Gotta find pregnant woman, gotta find a pregnant woman.
While probably not this consciously bad, the way they approach this in regards to the pregnant woman and the doctor displays a startling lack of trust and respect for both parties; treating both more like disobedient children who act without thought and without good reasons.
This becomes especially clear when the decision on getting an abortion is contrasted with any other medical condition, question or need. This level of scrutiny is not present for heart surgeries, kidney transplants, tonsillectomies, knee surgeries, and any other medical procedure. For all other medical issues the assumption is that the patient and doctors are acting in good faith and are capable of making good choices. Not so for abortion though.
In no other medical condition is there this level of disrespect, disregard, and distrust for both the patient and the doctor. It is insulting to both. Then add to that the bounty hunter provisions that so many of these laws have, actively looking for any who dare transgress what the Anti-Choicer believes.
This coupled with their refusal to understand (it is not ignorance for many, but a refusal to see the clear implications and reality) the biology of pregnancy and abortion as well as impact on women in all aspects of their lives, is why their views and campaign based upon those views are so dangerous. Both to the women who are pregnant and to society at large. As we can see playing out now.
There is the IVF controversy resulting from the Alabama Supreme Court ruling finding that embryo’s are people and deserving of the full protections of the law for people. A ruling based upon those refusals to understand biological reality that so many of the Anti-Choice have. And this from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Black women are three times as likely, and Hispanic women twice as likely, to seek abortions than white women. And half of all women who get abortions live below the poverty line—many of them in states that limit or are seeking to limit abortions, explained Bell.
Being denied an abortion comes with substantial health risks—especially for vulnerable groups. The risk of maternal death is 15 times higher for carrying a pregnancy to term than it is for abortion, and pregnancy-related complications are 2 to more than 25 times higher for pregnancies ending in birth compared to abortion, Bell explained. “We have maternal mortality rates that are in some cases twice as high in restrictive states as they are in supportive abortion states,” said Bell—and those restrictions undermine the delivery of basic services, Bell added
And then there are the financial and social costs to the individuals, their families, their communities that abortion causes.
All because a group of people with flawed views of biology have decided to totally disrespect both women and medical professionals. And just as with similar flawed thinking with the COVID and vaccination deniers, nothing good is coming of this. People are being hurt financially, in regards to their health, and even dying.
This is another example of how resolute ignorance always harms both individuals and society. We seem to be having more and more of such examples lately.