Anonymous wrote:There are now reports that Missouri doctors are forcing women with ectopic pregnancy to wait until the tube ruptures to do anything. So waiting until they are actively bleeding to death. Makes it much, much more likely they'll die and for a pregnancy that will never ever be viable, ever. Ectopic pregnancy has a 100% fatality rate if untreated. The chance of a baby being born is 0%.

This frankly is just senseless murder.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question. Before the recent Court decision, 43 states had laws that limited late term abortion to some version of “only to protect the life of the mother.” Only seven states, plus DC have (and will continue to have) unlimited late term abortion. There are now some states that will choose to impose that same standard at an earlier point in the pregnancy.

Setting aside the “right to choose” argument for the moment, these states have decades of experience enforcing the “health of the mother” exception late in pregnancy. Is there evidence that women died because of the late term abortion restriction? Not medical malpractice — a woman was diagnosed with a life threatening complication and she died because no one would risk performing an abortion? What is the difference between applying the standard late in pregnancy vs. earlier? Haven’t Doctors been making these judgments for years?

I don't understand what you are saying. Are you asking if there were doctors who refused to perform an abortion because of abortion restrictions and because of that the mother died?

What is throwing me off is when in your first paragraph you say "life of the mother" and in your second you say "health of the mother." Those are very different things. A doctor is much less likely to get prosecuted for performing an abortion to protect the health of the mother than she is for performing an abortion to protect the life of the mother.

The exact wording of the law varies from state to state, so you can answer with cases from either. There are 43 states that have bans on late term abortions with some exception for the those needed to protect the health of the mother (however it is worded) for decades. Is there data showing women have died because doctors have refused to perform these procedures because of risk of prosecution?

Anonymous wrote:CW child sexual abuse


I was raped by my stepbrother from ages 11-14. Yes some states offer exceptions for rape or abuse. But how would prove that? As a middle schooler who would I have to disclose my abuse too? Would my stepfather (also abusive) have found out? My life would have been ruined if I was forced to carry my step brother’s baby to term.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CW child sexual abuse


I was raped by my stepbrother from ages 11-14. Yes some states offer exceptions for rape or abuse. But how would prove that? As a middle schooler who would I have to disclose my abuse too? Would my stepfather (also abusive) have found out? My life would have been ruined if I was forced to carry my step brother’s baby to term.

Any child who shows up pregnant has been raped. Period. That should be the standard.

Anonymous wrote:Agree, OP. I had severe HG - severe enough that I was hospitalized at 9 weeks and living on banana bags. This was a wanted pregnancy achieved through very expensive fertility treatments. I lost 15% of my body weight and have had ongoing GI issues and complex PTSD ever since.

Knowing what can happen to women with HG that severe - stroke, heart attack, organ failure - I begged for an abortion. My doctor refused because I wasn't dying at that exact moment. I ate two saltines and checked myself out of the hospital. I literally crawled out through the lobby. Vomited nonstop for three days while I waited to get seen at Planned Parenthood. They saved my life.

This was at GW in 2012. Not a Catholic hospital. Not 1950. While abortion Roe was still the law of the land.

It's women like me who are going to suffer the most under this ruling. Those of us whose pregnancies threaten our lives but aren't yet actively in organ failure. I'm also very concerned for women who, like me, suffer from miscarriage. D&C is often necessary to clear the uterus. As my doctor explained while I wept over the loss of our first pregnancy, the line between miscarriage and not-miscarriage is not as bright as it seems on TV. Miscarriage, to some degree, is a medical judgement. I worry for those women whose doctors will wait too long to make that judgment and who will experience sepsis and other complications as a result.

I don't think most Americans understand any of this medicine well enough to truly understand what these laws are going to do to the women who are their neighbors and friends - "good," Christian, pro-life women experiencing very much wanted pregnancies need abortions too.

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Anonymous wrote:See, here's the thing. An "abortion story" that goes something like "I didn't want to have a baby so I had an abortion" is every bit as valid as all of these stories about fetal abnormalities and everything else because MY BODY MY CHOICE. Nothing else matters.

Why end the life of a tiny human being who no longer needs you? Allow her to continue her life without you. What’s the payoff in being violent?

Why are you lying? People don't get abortions on healthy pregnancies willy-nilly after the point of viability. They might end a pregnancy after 27 weeks for tragic reasons, but at that point the baby is delivered. Even in few weeks before viability, most pregnancies that are deliberately ended are tragic situations like this one. Read this woman's story. Even at 19.5 weeks it was a delivery, by c-section, not a D&E.

Oh good, yet another story just like the OP's with absolutely zero evidence or indication that mother's life was remotely in jeopardy. Pregnancies end spontaneously at many points in pregnancy and end naturally without danger to the mother--sorry, pregnant person--all the time. And by the way, if the fetus is just a sack of cells and only a "potential for life" as most posters on here keep claiming, why all the worry about the "baby" "suffering, suffocating?" You can't have it both ways. You can't say it's only a "potentail for life" and then claim it's to prevent their suffering in the uterus if it's not really a person. I speak from experience very much like this story. I was never in danger, the pregnancy ended on its own. My twins lived and breathed in my arms for a short time on earth. My healthcare takers knew better than to sedate me, knowing that it was important for me to be in the moment and remember my children. I don't have the PTSD that the storyteller here does--and I didn't even have a child to go home to. Just an empty sad house. But hard things happen to us, and if you're a normal person, you grieve and move on. This story is BS.

DP but you are responding to someone talking about a non-viable baby not the health of the mother. It is beyond cruel to force someone to continue to carry and deliver a baby that will not live, if that is their choice. You need help.

So that Twitter story person specifically said their life was at risk--that's an unknown. She's the one claiming PTSD and the necessity for therapy, etc. But I need help? I don't think so. I never ever said that women shouldn't choose to abort their pregnancy if a definitive diagnosis shows that the baby's condition is not compatible with life. One of my best friends made this choice in their 22nd week of pregnancy because of Trisomy 18, just months after I delivered my twins in the 20th week. And I was fully in support of her decision, and cried and empathized with her. I don't know why you jump to such crazy conclusions. I support women choosing abortion for whatever reason they wish. These dramatic women, making specious claims about how abortion saved their lives are what I take issue with. It completely devalues those who make the choice for other reasons, like my friend. Her life was not at risk. Her baby probably would have been born and lived a painful life for a short time. I want women like her to have that decision. And even want women like OP and that Twitter person to have that choice too--just to be honest and stop being so dramatic. They are the ones who need help, not me.

Anonymous wrote:New law: all pro-life women should be implanted with supernumerary embryos- particularly the defective ones - and forced to carry them to term. Then they can surrender them as Barrett said. Just take the nausea, the back-pain, the swelling and weight gain, the labor pain, the bleeding and perhaps the sorrow of giving birth to a dead baby.

If you are reaaaaly in danger we may consider termination but only if you are really 5 min from death…and if it’s too late, oh well, you’re going to Heaven so whatever right?

It is their body, but it’s in the interest of the state to get all those “domestic babies” born, so it’s the state choice.

That’s how insane the idea that the State can control a woman body is.

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Anonymous wrote:See, here's the thing. An "abortion story" that goes something like "I didn't want to have a baby so I had an abortion" is every bit as valid as all of these stories about fetal abnormalities and everything else because MY BODY MY CHOICE. Nothing else matters.

Why end the life of a tiny human being who no longer needs you? Allow her to continue her life without you. What’s the payoff in being violent?

Why are you lying? People don't get abortions on healthy pregnancies willy-nilly after the point of viability. They might end a pregnancy after 27 weeks for tragic reasons, but at that point the baby is delivered. Even in few weeks before viability, most pregnancies that are deliberately ended are tragic situations like this one. Read this woman's story. Even at 19.5 weeks it was a delivery, by c-section, not a D&E.

Oh good, yet another story just like the OP's with absolutely zero evidence or indication that mother's life was remotely in jeopardy. Pregnancies end spontaneously at many points in pregnancy and end naturally without danger to the mother--sorry, pregnant person--all the time. And by the way, if the fetus is just a sack of cells and only a "potential for life" as most posters on here keep claiming, why all the worry about the "baby" "suffering, suffocating?" You can't have it both ways. You can't say it's only a "potentail for life" and then claim it's to prevent their suffering in the uterus if it's not really a person. I speak from experience very much like this story. I was never in danger, the pregnancy ended on its own. My twins lived and breathed in my arms for a short time on earth. My healthcare takers knew better than to sedate me, knowing that it was important for me to be in the moment and remember my children. I don't have the PTSD that the storyteller here does--and I didn't even have a child to go home to. Just an empty sad house. But hard things happen to us, and if you're a normal person, you grieve and move on. This story is BS.

Medical intervention sometimes requires risk assessment of what may happen even if it isn't happening yet. That is why an ectopic pregnancy should be removed upon identification rather than waiting it out - or maybe you would choose to for yourself, but that's you.

That is why high risk folks are advised to get vaccinated for COVID. Or why some women with high familial risk if breast cancer choose to undergo mastectomy. There are millions of ways people make medical decisions in consultation with their doctor and may take initiative to do something preemptively rather than ride it out.

When it comes to an unviable and potentially unsafe pregnancy, waiting it out may be ok or it may not. But a woman should be able to choose and just because you may choose differently for yourself what to do based on your beliefs or risk perception depending on the scenario does not give you the right to make that choice for another woman. You are also not a doctor - the only group who should be advising on the real risk to the woman.

But people who get prophylactic mastectomies don't say that it saved their lives. It potentially saved their lives and gave them peace of mind. They cannot say definitively it saved their lives and neither can that person in the Twitter story. It's disingenuous and specious and not a good argument for choice. Either you believe in choice or you don't. The need to claim it saved your life (when there's no proof it did) certainly devalues the women who make that choice for other reasons. It seems like there are a few camps in the pro-abortion movement. Those who think it should be allowed only when it is needed to save or--in the OP's case, maybe possibly, in some universe, saves--the mother's life and those who think the choice should be a woman's no matter the circumstance. For the record, I am in the second camp and just over hearing from dramatic women whose arguments are specious.

The end result is doctors being on situations that require a woman get sicker before they can save her based on risk assessment - which is how these decisions are made. Your argument sounds lime you support that - wait it out until she's lost enough blood, gotten an infection, become septic, etc.

+1 That’s happening right now.

This is what people voted for- particularly in Missouri….now they see this, will they change their voting habits or no? I despair that people still won’t care.

Who are the doctors who are refusing to treat women with ectopic pregnancies?

The law is NOT ambiguous on this. Which state doesn't provide an exemption for ectopic pregnancy?

I am pro-choice but these stories, and their circulation in pro-choice circles, and their "this is what YOU voted for," makes me fearful that there is a certain contingent of adamantly pro-choice medical providers who are trying to prove a point.

I am very, very dubious that any ob/gyn would be fearful of prescribing methotrexate for an ectopic pregnancy based upon current laws-- or, if needed, performing laparoscopy.

Expectant management IS considered a valid treatment for ectopic pregnancy in the early stages, FWIW. About half of ectopic pregnancies resolve on their own.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are now reports that Missouri doctors are forcing women with ectopic pregnancy to wait until the tube ruptures to do anything. So waiting until they are actively bleeding to death. Makes it much, much more likely they'll die and for a pregnancy that will never ever be viable, ever. Ectopic pregnancy has a 100% fatality rate if untreated. The chance of a baby being born is 0%.

This frankly is just senseless murder.

This is, unfortunately, not an exaggeration. I have a family member who is a nurse in L&D in Missouri and she's horrified by what she's seen this week. They are waiting until a woman's health is in a critical stage before treating them. Women are going to die or become infertile because of this. I don't know how anyone could possibly think this is ok.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question. Before the recent Court decision, 43 states had laws that limited late term abortion to some version of “only to protect the life of the mother.” Only seven states, plus DC have (and will continue to have) unlimited late term abortion. There are now some states that will choose to impose that same standard at an earlier point in the pregnancy.

Setting aside the “right to choose” argument for the moment, these states have decades of experience enforcing the “health of the mother” exception late in pregnancy. Is there evidence that women died because of the late term abortion restriction? Not medical malpractice — a woman was diagnosed with a life threatening complication and she died because no one would risk performing an abortion? What is the difference between applying the standard late in pregnancy vs. earlier? Haven’t Doctors been making these judgments for years?

I don't understand what you are saying. Are you asking if there were doctors who refused to perform an abortion because of abortion restrictions and because of that the mother died?

What is throwing me off is when in your first paragraph you say "life of the mother" and in your second you say "health of the mother." Those are very different things. A doctor is much less likely to get prosecuted for performing an abortion to protect the health of the mother than she is for performing an abortion to protect the life of the mother.

The exact wording of the law varies from state to state, so you can answer with cases from either. There are 43 states that have bans on late term abortions with some exception for the those needed to protect the health of the mother (however it is worded) for decades. Is there data showing women have died because doctors have refused to perform these procedures because of risk of prosecution?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I delievered twins at 20 weeks and obviously they lived only a few hours, so I am truly sympathetic to your loss. I also endured non-stop and dangerous bleeding after a different delivery. So I understand a little bit what you went through. So please understand, I don't mean to be callous or dismissive. But, I am trying to understand how the abortion saved your life. It kind of sounds like the abortion endangered your life. What would have happened had the pregnancy been left to end on its own? Yes, it would have been difficult to know you were carrying a baby that would not survive, but it may very well have been a safer decision. Sometimes in life we suffer through very sad things. I have had my share. But I don't think it's accurate to say that abortion saved your life.

And this here is why a “life of the mother” exception is not enough. People will squabble about what is actually going to kill the pregnant person and what is just going to hurt her. At best there will obviously be a lot of harm, which is understood when there is no harm to the mother exception. But there will also be more material death.

But the above is not a political or even moral question, but truly one about what is best for the mother. Abortion at 20 weeks or later, as you can see from OP's post, is not a no-brainer. It can be dangerous and not in the best of interest of the mother. It's like pro-abortionists cannot see any nuane. I am pro-choice, so this is not political, but honestly. How can you read OP's story and not see that the abortion did not save her life. She her herself describes how it almost killed her.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are now reports that Missouri doctors are forcing women with ectopic pregnancy to wait until the tube ruptures to do anything. So waiting until they are actively bleeding to death. Makes it much, much more likely they'll die and for a pregnancy that will never ever be viable, ever. Ectopic pregnancy has a 100% fatality rate if untreated. The chance of a baby being born is 0%.

This frankly is just senseless murder.

This is, unfortunately, not an exaggeration. I have a family member who is a nurse in L&D in Missouri and she's horrified by what she's seen this week. They are waiting until a woman's health is in a critical stage before treating them. Women are going to die or become infertile because of this. I don't know how anyone could possibly think this is ok.

Anonymous wrote:New law: all pro-life women should be implanted with supernumerary embryos- particularly the defective ones - and forced to carry them to term. Then they can surrender them as Barrett said. Just take the nausea, the back-pain, the swelling and weight gain, the labor pain, the bleeding and perhaps the sorrow of giving birth to a dead baby.

If you are reaaaaly in danger we may consider termination but only if you are really 5 min from death…and if it’s too late, oh well, you’re going to Heaven so whatever right?

It is their body, but it’s in the interest of the state to get all those “domestic babies” born, so it’s the state choice.

That’s how insane the idea that the State can control a woman body is.