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The Big and Little Lies About Reproductive Health

Tatiana Prophet

Photo: Jemarius Jachin Harbor, Jr., born at 21 weeks gestation in December 2019 at Emory University Medical Center in Decatur, Ga., is the youngest preemie ever to be born. His mother, Jessica McPherson, had lost her previous two pregnancies at 22 weeks. She told Fox 5 Atlanta: “We looked at each other in the eye and I told him just give it a try. I just want you to try as long as you try that’s all that matters to me, don’t just up and say that you can’t do it. Just ‘cause you haven’t done it doesn’t mean it can’t be done.” Credit/Facebook.

By TATIANA PROPHET

Every year in the United States, between 7,000 and 15,000 fetuses are aborted late in their development (21 weeks or more). More than half are healthy.

Wait, this can’t be true – right? Only 1 percent of all abortions are after 21 weeks. With total annual abortions hovering over or under 1 million, that 1 percent is actually a lot of procedures.

By abortion advocates’ own admission, the number of late-term abortions per year is roughly 15,000.

Further, according to the same study, most late-term abortions are elective.

“The body of research on women who have dealt with fetal anomalies or life endangerment … describes … pregnancy wantedness and tragic circumstances,” wrote Professor Diana Greene Foster in 2013. “But data suggest that most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.”

Take for example a 26-year-old New Mexico woman described in the same study, who had an abortion at 28 weeks gestation (way past viability) because “I was afraid of my boyfriend finding out, and I went [to the abortion clinic] once he was in jail.” New Mexico has almost no restrictions on abortion up to 40 weeks. Twenty percent of the study’s respondents said disagreement with the man involved in the pregnancy was the reason for delay.

Foster, director of the Bixby Population Sciences Research Unit at University of California San Francisco, was not trying to expose the dangers of unrestricted abortion to the unborn who could lead meaningful lives; she was trying to show how barriers to abortion negatively affect women’s lives. Her study, the Turnaway Study, is the largest longitudinal study to look at women who are denied abortion.

Back to Facts’ research indicates that most late-term abortions are elective in states with no restrictions; and approved by a doctor for wider reasons other than fetal viability (think Down’s syndrome, spina bifida or cleft lip); or the mother’s life (think mental health).

How can Foster (who admirably advocates for aggressive contraception), ignore half of the implications? Simple. She and her co-author call studies of fetal pain “unscientific,” and state that the absence of pain before 24 weeks is “scientific consensus.” (See sidebar on pain).

And the reason you’ve never heard about unfettered termination of thousands of later healthy pregnancies is that  public figures who oppose restrictions on the procedure insist that the “vast majority” of  these procedures are the tragic byproduct of a pregnancy gone wrong.

In 2016, asked about late-term abortion by Chris Wallace, candidate Hillary Clinton said: ““The kinds of cases that fall at the end of pregnancy are often the most heartbreaking, painful decisions for parents to make. I have met with women who have toward the end of their pregnancy get the worst news one can get, that their health is in jeopardy if they continue to carry to term, or that something terrible has happened or just been discovered about the pregnancy. I do not think the United States government should be stepping in and making those most personal of decisions.”

After that debate, supporters of Hillary on social media (including me) shared and reshared personal testimonials from couples who had to terminate a pregnancy very late in the game. These were their “abortion stories.” I must have read a dozen. They were all similar. And horribly tragic.

But none of them mentioned the poor, uneducated young women who for various reasons delayed their decision to abort until past the 21st week. Then a supporter of Hillary, I was curious about the stories that weren’t being shared in the countdown to the 2016 election. That’s when I found the Turnaway Study.

SEE SIDEBAR ON HOW WE COMPILED OUR LATE-TERM ABORTION DATA

Why has it been so difficult to simply ban late-term abortions and then figure out how to help women who are struggling with their unwanted pregnancy? Politics.

Many political operatives and researchers believe that any attempt to protect a fetus after a certain developmental stage are trying to roll back Roe v. Wade altogether.

“Gestational Age Bans: Harmful at Any Stage of Pregnancy” is the title of a 2020 article by Megan K. Donovan of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the publishing arm of Planned Parenthood. (One has to ask, harmful to whom?).

“Gestational age bans have long been a favored tactic of antiabortion activists and politicians as they seek to undermine and ultimately overturn the constitutional right to abortion,” she wrote. “In the past, such efforts were usually cloaked in supposed justifications that obscured the end goal. For example, bans on abortion at or around 22 weeks after the last menstrual period (LMP) have been propped up with unscientific claims about that stage of pregnancy, such as that a fetus can feel pain or that ending the pregnancy will result in mental health complications.”

You would be amazed at the difference in scientific opinions on fetal pain. SEE SIDEBAR ON FETAL PAIN.

OPINION WARNING:

Now, a disclaimer. As a researcher and writer, I have chosen to approach the abortion issue with an abundance of caution from a constitutional standpoint, not from a religious standpoint. My question is, in sharing incomplete facts, is our global leadership violating the human rights of the most vulnerable of our own species by putting them through an unimaginably traumatic death, and then depriving them of the most basic right a human can have – the chance to live?

My conclusion is, every year science discovers more information about fetal awareness and viability. In other words, scientists may claim “consensus” but the ones who claim this is settled aren’t keeping up. I am a feminist. I don’t want anyone to forego their dreams because of an unwanted pregnancy. Do I believe the solution is to conceal the truth about our treatment of the smallest and most vulnerable?

Obviously not. We need a more compassionate world, one we have the creativity to imagine. But before we do that, we must learn and acknowledge how healthy fetuses are killed. Or we are no better than the slavers of old as we seek to justify our unimaginable cruelty to the pre-born.

Further reading — links from the Bixby Center at UC San Francisco: