I’m honestly sick and tired of people telling me my life is a price they’re willing to pay… between school shootings, coronavirus, and now abortion bans. Although I’m told I’m exaggerating the last one because these laws all contain provisions that allow for abortions to save the life of the pregnant person. Excuse me, but I’m not buying it. They already took away a medical decision between me and my doctor and made it a political decision. A political decision made by these geniuses of reproductive biology. I don’t believe for a second that they’re just going to let women go around getting life-saving medical treatment willy-nilly.
I’ve already heard this argument in regards to allowing rape victims to abort… “What if they lie and just say they were raped to get an abortion?” And I already know they don’t trust me or my doctor to make appropriate medical decisions for myself. So I have no doubt whatever stupid hoops they want us to jump through will end up killing many of us.
So now I have two questions. How many states do not/will not have a provision for abortions to be allowed to save the life of a women? (For now, at least, since I know the plan is to make things even stricter as time goes on) And how likely is it that women will actually be able to get that medical care if they need it?
I know there’s been a lot of abortion threads lately, so thank you to anyone who’s read this far and can take a stab at answering.
If anyone, government or otherwise, provides a loophole for someone to bypass a rule, they should expect that loophole to be exploited. Remember medical marijuana? Laws that were meant to be compassionate to allow cancer and chronic illness sufferers relief from pain, nausea, or other severe symptoms were used by ordinary people who wanted to smoke marijuana to have a quickie examination from a near-quack for migraine headaches or back pain and get a marijuana prescription. Suicidal thoughts are a life-threatening condition, correct? Expect states that don’t scrutinise life-threatening conditions as exceptions to abortion limitations to see a surge in non-conspicuous life-threatening conditions. Therefore states that are serious about limiting abortions will require additional scrutiny and proof, and penalties for non-rigorous diagnosis, before allowing an exceptional abortion for a life-threatening condition.
I don’t think any state would pass an abortion ban without some provision about the life of the pregnant person, not sure about the health. However, the problem is (among the problems…) that a state that closely monitors abortions done for that reason will scare off doctors from doing the procedure at all, or make them more reluctant and waste time dithering, while the pregnant person’s health becomes more endangered.
Laws in Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Dakota, and Oklahoma would allow abortions to save the life of the mother. Arkansas and Louisiana also have specific language for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages.
Missouri only allows exceptions for “medical emergencies.”
I’m not aware of any state ban that eliminates an exception for the life of the mother, but as you mention, @RitterSport, doctors are concerned about exactly how that’s supposed to be defined.
How feasible will it be to sue legislators or legislation sponsors for making procedures for lifesaving-abortion approval too onerous, once these “additional scrutiny and proof” requirements inevitably start causing significant numbers of deaths among pregnant people whose access to abortion is delayed by them?
I believe the expectation is that the law will be clarified through a series of court decisions. Which of course means that no doctor wants to risk it, but some will feel morally obligated to provide an abortion and will end up in court.
The common situation that this law doesn’t treat clearly is is someone is diagnosed with cancer and pregnancy in rapid succession. Most cancer treatments attack fast-reproducing cells, so they will kill or possibly just seriously injure the embryo or fetus. (of course, cancer is not one disease, it’s a collection of different diseases, and some can be treated during pregnancy. But some kinda can’t be. I’m talking about those ones.) So, what is legal:
Abort and treat the cancer?
Treat the cancer even though it may kill the fetus?
Treat the cancer and remove the fetus is it sustains horrible-but-not-immediately-fatal injuries?
Only treat the cancer in ways that are safer for the fetus, and hope?
Only treat the cancer in ways that are safer for the fetus, but if it then grows rapidly, then give chemotherapy? Wait until the cancer is about to kill the mother?
Pre-eclampsia is another. If it starts very early, its clear where it is going and that you aren’t going to get far along enough for the baby to make it. But now do you have to wait until the mother is on the absolute verge of a stroke until you can do something? Because that will be a more dangerous, stressful abortion, lead to more long term damage, and maywell result in a stroke or death if they get it wrong.
I honestly wish we had a national ban. We’d be forced to address these issues. Now, wealthy women with cancer or pre-eclampsia will just go to another atate and the poor women who are affected won’t have the means to push for changw.
As individuals? Yes. But the staye can be sued for laws that violate civil rights. That’s how we got Roe in the first place. But it’s two steps back, one step forward, if a later court rules that a “protect the life of the mother” standard is too strict.
Bolding mine. 1) The quick answer to your question is pretty much impossible, and 2) my further response is: Be careful what you wish for.
Regarding point 1, legislators refers to individual members of the legislature, who generally have immunity for their legislative duties including proposing and voting for laws. Corrupt activities are illegal, but that invariably means accepting bribes. Arguably, they have a duty to consider the legislation they’re sponsoring or voting for. But there is no established threshold for meeting this duty, and a simple statement of “I voted based on what I thought was right” would meet the minimal requirement for such a supposed duty.
Legislation supporters can be individuals or groups, and aren’t subject to immunity. However, they are protected by free speech rights. The “death rate” for abortions is essentially 100%. The “death rate” for US pregnancies in 2020 was 0.0238%. An argument that the former is more harmful than the latter and should be prevented by legislation is free speech.
Regarding point 2, do you want Planned Parenthood to be sued for proposing pro-choice legislation?
Sure. An individual can sue to prevent enforcement of a law. In some very limited circumstances that overcome sovereign immunity, you can also sue the state for damages arising from enforcement of a law.
But you can’t sue to hold individual legislators liable for damages arising from the laws they pass. Allowing such would be folly. Legislators regularly pass laws that could foreseeably create risk to peoples’ lives, health or property (e.g. the draft, eminent domain). These often involve trade-offs where the risk or damages are (in the legislators’ judgment) outweighed by a public good. Opening legislators up to the possibility of being sued for civil damages for doing so would shut down legislating on all but the most innocuous of topics.
Edit: got ninjaed by @Wrenching_Spanners making pretty much the same point but gonna leave this up anyway.
Huh, I guess the timing can vary. I know two people who had this, but both had an emergency C-section and the baby had some preemie issues, but was basically fine. Both those babies are now reasonably healthy young women. And both mothers were fine (modulo c-section recovery) within a week or two of the delivery.
But neither had any indication of problems early on. I’m sure if you did, you wouldn’t make it to viability.
The death rate for pregnancies was a lot higher when abortion was illegal. But I agree with your broader point, that it’s appropriate for legislators to be immune from suits over their voting, except in cases of actual corruption, like bribery. (and then the crime is accepting the bribe, the vote is just evidence.)
I think the OP is correct. Numerous road blocks will be thrown in the way of women seeking an abortion to save their lives. The anti-abortion fanatics are not going away, they’ll focus on possible abortion legal or otherwise.
Well, a national ban may be forthcoming depending on how the 2024 elections go, but how exactly would that be any better? How is it better to have women of means travel abroad instead of to another state? You’re just reducing the pool of women who can circumvent the law, not making things better for other women.
Internet says it can happen at any time, but very rarely before 20 weeks, and usually after 34 weeks.
As I understand it, at 34 weeks, you can deliver the baby with almost no issues, but if you are showing signs of pre-eclampsia at 20 weeks, the chances of keeping it under control for as long as it is going to take to get to viability are low, and your life is at constant risk until it goes away.
Because travelling out of the country is much, much more difficult. I don’t really hope for a national ban. But I think a patchwork approach will make it even less likely that it will be overturned.
Yeah, my pregnancy buddy went in for a routine prenatal checkup, and after they realized she had signs of eclampsia, they did an emergency C-section on the spot, even though that meant delivering a preemie. It’s not something that’s safe to just wait and monitor.
As a quick demonstration of how carefully Republican lawmakers are studying this issue, a couple of years ago 19 Republicans in Ohio introduced a law that would charge women with ectopic pregnancies with murder unless they reimplanted their embryos. Just in case you were wondering, no such procedure to do this exists.
How is it better to have women of means travel abroad instead of to another state? You’re just reducing the pool of women who can circumvent the law, not making things better for other women.