Obligatory Post Where I Repeat Stuff
It wasn't hysterics in 2016, and certainly not hyperbole now
Note: I initially wrote this week-of, 9/13/22 but sat on it for a while because I wanted to make time to record an audio version. It’s almost been two months so… doing some light editing to reflect passage of time, with audio to come later as it’s now election day whoops.
In September, Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced a national 15-week abortion ban bill, which the commentariat declares unpopular and unlikely to pass. However, similar things were said about the leaked Supreme Court decision re: Dobbs in May, so unfortunately I must once again climb on the soapbox (and if you were expecting chatter from me earlier, I took it out on twitter). Conveniently, I’ve written about this before so for specifics on why I do not think there should be limits to access and the issues with exceptions, see the following posts:
Voluntarily choosing to be pregnant has only sharpened my convictions that abortion bans should not exist, mostly because so many things can go wrong in a pregnancy. I drafted this post just over the halfway point which means statistically if issues haven’t shown up we should be okay, but there’s still a lot of time in the remaining months. I am in a discord server for my due month, and for some, the 20 week anatomy scan is when they discovered issues like placenta previa or subchorionic hematoma which require additional monitoring in case something goes awry (though it’s fascinating to me that placentas can just… move sometimes). We haven’t had losses in chat yet, thankfully, but there are those with rainbow pregnancies who are understandably anxious when spotting occurs repeatedly due to one of the above. One even had her twins at 27 weeks due to complications (everyone’s fine, though it’s a long NICU stay)!
Sen. Graham’s bill is like a greatest hits of much of what I’ve railed against previously: prioritizing perceived fetal pain over the actual harms to the pregnant patient, requiring documentation for the sexual assault exceptions, and only allowing physical harms for the exception for maternal health, as if psychological and mental trauma don’t count. It further suggests that practitioners perform the procedure in such a way to somehow allow the fetus to survive and then promptly provide hospital care if they do, and that the only place this can be performed in is hospitals. He also tries to redefine anything past 15 weeks as “late term”, when late term itself is a political buzzword and not an actual medical definition (if paywalled, here’s the relevant section:
“Late-term” abortions are generally understood to take place during or after the 21st to 24th week of gestation, which is late in the second trimester. That gestational period roughly corresponds to the point of “fetal viability” or when a fetus might be able to survive outside the womb with or without medical assistance. However, there is no precise medical or legal definition of “late-term,” and many doctors and scientists avoid that language, calling it imprecise and misleading. They say “late-term” may imply that these abortions are taking place when a woman has reached or passed a full-term pregnancy, which is defined as starting in the 37th week.
During this pregnancy, I avoided travel to states with bans because I grew up on the idea that you plan for the worst, hope for the best. If I have a medical emergency, I do not want to be trapped away from home at the mercy of a hospital lawyer trying to decide how close to death I should be before they’re willing to risk liability and provide necessary care, especially given how hostile my home state is.
During my commute home in September, I heard a segment on All Things Considered reporting on how Idaho’s ban affects Washington clinics. NPR interviewed a couple who already have two kids and can’t afford childcare (especially with rising housing costs in the Gem State). They took weeks to save up for the gas and lodgings in order to travel to Spokane only to find that they ran out of time. Scott Herndon, a prospective state senator (he’s running unopposed from north Idaho) plans to introduce legislation that will charge people who have abortions with murder but evaded the question of what punishment that would actually entail. If Mr. Herndon truly cared about life, he’d consider polices that would allow his fellow Idahoans to be able to afford having that third child, that wouldn’t make forced birth a further financial hardship.
And once again, choosing to be pregnant really sharpens how expensive it is to have a child, especially in the United States. Editorials bemoan the shrinking birth rate, but given how people in our age range can’t afford to buy a house in the current market (in addition to carrying crippling student loan debt shackled by compounding interest), how would it be sensible to bring a child into this world when childcare costs are astronomical? My husband and I want to be parents, and we are at a point where we can afford to do so- this isn’t the case for all of our peers. With a January due date, some of my peers are contemplating if there are ways to strategize open enrollment vs changes we can make at birth as a Qualifying Life Event (and if it’s worth the postpartum headache to fight with insurance).
While reproductive rights are firmly established in Oregon, there’s fears parts of the state government could flip Republican, and it frustrates to me to no end that the coworkers (or new Twitter owner) seem to think “balance” is having gridlock. You want to ~checks notes~ remove rights to personal bodily autonomy, or chase boondoggles that punish vulnerable populations? If you support politicians who favor policies like this, I fail to see how I can consider you to be a good neighbor, especially as that means you’d be ok with either my punishment or death as collateral for your preferred affiliations. Please be mindful when you turn in your ballots today.