Abortion bans start claiming lives

ProPublica reporting a heartbreaking story of young with nonviable fetus dying because doctors were paralyzed by anti-abortion laws. It would’ve been enraging to been her nurse. Few quick facts.

• Youngest child to survive prematurely was 21 weeks old. Children born at such early stages are high risk for death and have to stay in NICU for weeks.

• An abundance of women do not know they are pregnant at 6 weeks for some of the most severe bans.

• The exceptions in the laws are hard to hurdles to cross.

  • It takes time to investigate cases of rape and incest. Even if the woman feels safe enough coming forward!

  • Medical professionals have to wait until the patient is sick enough to have the abortion. This is a grey line and providers want to help, but not get sued. The laws are intentionally opaque to not provide enough guidance, but the provider/hospital can still get sued!

A case similar to this one caused a popular movement in Ireland to overturn its abortion ban. We need to prevent these senseless deaths, but I fear a win for Trump is only going embolden Christian fundamentalists. Laws will get more strict. Regulations will get overtruned. Laws be damned. See Mifepristone case. The Supreme Court eventually did the right thing, but the district court and 5th circuit are rogue/result oriented. More cases will be brought and some will eventually win with the current Judiciary.

Credit to ProPublica for reporting on this sad case and ChatGPT for the image.