The overturning of Roe v. Wade, on June 24, heralds an alarming new chapter in the United States. The next day, on NPR, the station many of us depend on for sober, balanced reporting, Susan Davis talked with an obstetrician about the ruling. Was it with one of the 60,000 members of ACOG — the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists? No.
She interviewed one of the 2,500 obstetricians of the “pro-life” splinter group AAPLOG/ Ms. Davis failed to challenge this doctor when she called abortion a “medically risky procedure,” promoting the lie that maternal mortality improves when abortion is banned, when experts agree that the opposite is true.
The next day, “All Things Considered” reporter Ari Shapiro gave the spotlight to Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, who is leading a campaign to pass a federal abortion ban. No more “handing this decision back to the states,” as the Court asserted. Look out Massachusetts, and everyone who thinks we are safe in our blue states!
Her group is working to bring a Republican majority to Congress for this reason. On her website, she boasts of a few of these bills which have already been introduced in Congress: The Life at Conception Act (S.99), and the Heartbeat Protection Act (H.R. 705: 113 cosponsors — 103 of them white men). Her group is also pushing the so-called Protecting Life on College Campus Bill which will prohibit federal funding for college campuses that provide “chemical abortions.”
Mr. Shapiro played this young woman a recording of an obstetrician who is concerned about not being able to terminate a tubal pregnancy, in which the fertilized egg sits in the fallopian tube, can never develop into a viable fetus, and not terminating the pregnancy can lead to death. Ms. Hawkins responded that the doctor was just bringing up this issue as a scare tactic.
Yet in many states, laws banning abortion in all cases, from six weeks onward even in cases of rape, incest, or when the pregnant woman’s life is at stake, have already taken effect. On July 2, an Ohio pediatrician specializing in child abuse had to send a 10-year-old rape victim, then 6 weeks and 3 days pregnant, to Indiana because of this ban on all abortions after six weeks from the conception date. Neither Ms. Davis nor Mr. Shapiro brought up the issues of rape (including rape of children) nor incest.
Ms. Hawkins has claimed that Planned Parenthood is a racist organization, promotes sex trafficking, deliberately gives out low quality condoms, and sells parts from aborted fetuses. This last falsehood was used as justification by the murderer of three people at an abortion clinic in 2015.
In addition to opposing abortion, her well-funded organization is also against “abortifacient” forms of birth control like oral contraceptives and IUD’s. Yet the July 2 Sunday New York Times joined NPR in spotlighting this fringe student group with a generally favorable front-page story about them.
NPR’s one hard hitting interview last week was with Vice President Kamala Harris. In contrast to Ms. Davis’s and Mr. Shapiro’s feckless interviews, reporter Asma Khalid relentlessly asked: Why is the administration not pushing for a bill to support a woman’s right to choose? Why not overthrow the filibuster?
Ms. Harris grew frustrated after repeating the obvious: There are not enough votes. She stated that what Americans who believe abortion should be legal in most circumstances should do is vote for candidates who reflect their views.
Rather than encouraging listeners who support the right to choose, NPR and the New York Times’ decision to highlight these fringe organizations, while casting doubt on the competence of leaders like President Joe Biden and Harris, may lead to despair,
And that is just what the pro-fertilized egg extremists want, so they can continue to press their agenda to further infringe upon the rights of women and LBGTQ individuals. “Pro fertilized egg” is a much more accurate term for their position than “pro-life,” because conservatives who have supported for the rights of fertilized eggs have consistently voted against almost any bill that would improve the health or safety of living children, including child tax credits, universal health insurance, or laws to prevent gun violence — now the number one cause of death in childhood.
As a pediatrician, I have devoted my life to the health care of children. My obstetrical colleagues have devoted their lives to the health care of women. The Supreme Court not only removed individual rights but stripped the rights of physicians to prevent and treat illness according to the best scientific evidence. With advances in neonatal care, a fetus may be viable, surviving with maximal support at 23- or 24-weeks’ gestation outside of the womb. When life begins is a matter of personal belief.
But, as ACOG stated in 2019, “a strongly held personal belief should never override standards of medical care or drive policy that puts a person’s health at risk. Pregnancy imposes significant physiological changes on a person’s body. These changes can worsen underlying or preexisting conditions … and can severely compromise health or even cause death. Determining the appropriate medical intervention depends on a patient’s specific condition. There are situations where pregnancy termination in the form of abortion is the only medical intervention that can preserve or save life.”
Outlawing abortions opens a Pandora’s box of risks for any pregnant women. Since it may be impossible to prove the cause of a miscarriage or stillbirth, any of the 3 million women who suffer them every year may be criminally investigated. Over 1,200 women have already been convicted of crimes for using illicit drugs during pregnancy that ended in miscarriage, even though these drugs have not been proven to be the cause of miscarriage. In 2020, 21-year-old Brittney Poolaw was sentenced to four years in prison for first-degree manslaughter for miscarrying at four months, with traces of methylamphetamine found on autopsy of the fetus.
Ms. Poolaw is Native American. Most of the women who have been traumatized by these “forcible interventions” after suffering a miscarriage are BIPOC and/or poor. Women of color — who already suffer maternal mortality rates three times that of white women (worse than maternal mortality rates in Syria), will be most adversely affected by the end of legal abortion.
If you disagree with politicians, judges, and evangelists controlling bodily autonomy and the practice of medicine, the answer is not despair. Vice President Harris is correct. We must work like hell to elect representatives and senators who believe in the rights of doctors and all women.
Dr. David Gottsegen, of Belchertown, is a doctor at Holyoke Pediatric Associates.