All tagged abortion data

The data: Most later abortions are not medically necessary

The data: Most later abortions are not medically necessary

Tatiana Prophet
Abortion

Photo: Cover photo for the study “Young, Poor and Pregnant: the Psychology of Teenage Motherhood,” by developmental psychologist Judith S. Musick, 1995.

By TATIANA PROPHET

How did I find out that most late-term abortions are not medically necessary? Most of the data came from choice advocates themselves, who warn that women seeking late-term abortion face significant barriers: how far they must travel, getting the finances together, not having insurance, indecision and even disagreement with their romantic partner.

Stop for a second: Late-term abortions are extremely rare, you may have heard. And that would be correct: 1 percent to 1.3 percent of all abortion procedures are post-21-weeks gestation, according to CDC figures. The rest of the story, however, is that so many abortions are performed each year (they peaked in 1990 at 1.6 million) – that 1 percent to 1.3 percent is still a large figure: 6,000 to 20,000 well-developed fetuses aborted every year.

A fetal pain 'denier' rethinks the science

A fetal pain 'denier' rethinks the science

Tatiana Prophet

Photo: Lennart Nilsson’s 1965 cover photo for LIFE magazine: “Living 18-week-old fetus shown inside its amniotic sac.” It was the best-selling issue of all time.

By TATIANA PROPHET

“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.

“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.”