The anti-choice movement has always relied on lies and misinformation to motivate its far-right base, and we have seen the devastating outcomes — the skyrocketing rates in anti-choice violence and spikes in anti-choice legislation, particularly since Donald Trump took office in 2016. As we see the threats of harm against physicians and incidences of harassment grow, their inflammatory language has only gotten more and more extreme.
Now, the anti-choice establishment has set its sights on families who face extremely complex medical circumstances and launched a full-blown campaign of deception. This extremist baiting is meant to dehumanize those who have an abortion later in their pregnancy and carve out a path for criminalizing abortion across the country. Americans are firmly on the side of reproductive freedom and the side of showing compassion and support for pregnant people making their own healthcare decisions. We will not stand for these lies that seek to punish them.
Yes, Abortion Can Be Medically Necessary
The claim that abortion is never medically necessary is so absolutely outrageous and anti-science that it’s almost hard to believe that the far-right is pushing it as an actual talking point — but it’s become apparent that anti-choice activists will say or do nearly anything to further their extremist ideology and push their ultimate goal of criminalizing abortion. The obvious truth: Abortion is medically necessary to save the life of a pregnant person in a number of circumstances. That’s not up for any sort of realistic debate here on planet Earth.
Writer and producer Elisabeth Finch is just one woman who relied on an abortion to save her life — in her case, after her bone cancer relapsed: “With my decimated immune system and limited kidney function, my body wasn’t strong enough to sustain nine straight months of compromise. I couldn’t stop my monthly cancer treatments and daily medication, or they believed my tumors would return–with no guarantee I would survive the cancer (or treatments) yet again.”
Even outside of chronic illnesses, pregnancy itself can be dangerous. We already know the United States is the only industrialized country in the world with a growing maternal mortality rate. We know that the U.S. is facing an epidemic of preventable maternal deaths. Pregnant people deserve access to the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare to decide what they need throughout their pregnancy, whether that is prenatal care or postpartum counseling or access to safe abortion.
Dr. Jennifer Gunter, obstetrician and gynecologist board certified in both the United States and Canada, named just a few of life-threatening, pregnancy-related conditions above in her tweeted response to an anti-choice extremist, but the list goes on. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists further added in a recent briefing that “Abortion later in pregnancy may also be necessary when complications severely compromise a woman’s health or life…These might include premature rupture of membranes and infection, preeclampsia, placental abruption, and placenta accreta. Women in these circumstances may risk extensive blood loss, stroke, and septic shock that could lead to maternal death.”
When serious medical complications arise later in pregnancy, healthcare providers must have access to the full range of safe treatment options, including c-section, induction, or abortion, based on what’s best for a pregnant person’s specific medical circumstance. Medical professionals — not anti-choice politicians — are the most qualified experts to provide guidance on complex medical scenarios. Period.
Imagined Scenarios about Abortion Later in Pregnancy are Built on Dangerous Lies
As writer Alex Berg covered in Teen Vogue, “Why do women have abortions that late in pregnancy? It’s not because you carry for five to six months and decide ‘Meh, I changed my mind. I have $10,000 dollars to throw around, let me go in for that.’” Pregnant people seek abortion later in pregnancy for a variety of extremely personal reasons like severe medical conditions, non-viable pregnancies, fear associated with rape, incest, or abuse — and, increasingly, delays in accessing care as a result of unnecessary anti-choice restrictions.
The anti-choice base is only interested in creating their ridiculous and false hypothetical scenarios to attempt to hide the fact they don’t care about women or our health. They’re interested in trying to strategically distract from their attempts to end family planning programs and block healthcare access for women and their families. It’s the same old smokescreen they always pull out.
Bans on abortion later in pregnancy hurt women and families who face some of the most medically complex situations imaginable. Pregnant people in these situations need understanding, information, and support — not public condemnation, not political interference, not demonizing untruths.
Can’t Believe We Have to Say This — But No, Abortion Doesn’t Happen after Childbirth
Not only is the anti-choice lie being repeated by the president revolting, it’s also absolutely insulting to families who have had their lives upended by miscarriages and non-viable pregnancies. This simply is not how healthcare works, and the anti-choice movement is completely aware of that, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to urge their followers to believe it. This falsehood is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to close reproductive healthcare clinics and shame the 1 in 4 women who will have an abortion in their lifetime.
Women like NARAL member Kate Carson, who had an abortion later in her pregnancy and noted in a recent op-ed that anti-choice politicians “Seem to care nothing for the true stories of heartbreak, loss and extreme medical complexity behind abortion later in pregnancy. Instead, [their] agenda must inflate fear and horror until every last American thinks of unspeakable violence…This is not about abortion. It is about power. This administration needs the public to be angry at women like me and misinformed about what compels women to seek later abortions.”
Just as Kate observed, President Trump has used his platform at both the State of the Union and his campaign rallies to spread this extremely dangerous lie. Anti-choice Senator Ben Sasse has taken it even further by introducing an opportunistic, extremist bill (which you can still take action against here) this year to combat an entirely fabricated issue. Sasse’s inflammatory bill, S. 311, relies on inflammatory and imagined scenarios to target abortion providers and interfere with our private healthcare. Numerous medical associations have submitted their collective opposition to Congress, stating: “S. 311 injects politicians into the patient-provider relationship, disregarding providers’ training and clinical judgment and undermining their ability to determine the best course of action with their patients. S. 311 would impose criminal and civil penalties on providers to discourage them from providing care, limiting access for their patients.”
This bill does nothing except allow politicians to inflict medically unnecessary restrictions on clinics and threaten medical professionals with prison time for providing care in alignment with their medical training. It is another step toward the ultimate anti-choice goal of closing clinics, criminalizing abortion, and punishing both patients and doctors — disguised by anti-science pandering.
Dangerous Fearmongering
Since Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, anti-choice rhetoric has intensified into increasingly extreme territory as anti-choice activists shift their strategy away from incremental attacks on Roe and begin to prepare for their vision of a post-Roe world.
Like the rest of the anti-choice movement’s platform, none of these lies about abortion later in pregnancy are based in science, medicine, or reality. The anti-choice movement has never had a problem distorting the truth about reproductive healthcare, but the clear escalations in their dangerous rhetoric are nothing short of appalling. It’s all too obvious that this desperate propaganda is intended to outrage and incite the radical far-right, putting both our health and our lives at risk.
