if you bring up abortion bans having “exceptions for medical emergencies” as a way to counter this you are a fucking moron.
if you think that abortions bans having “exceptions for medical emergencies” means everyone who needs an abortion in order to avoid death and disability will receive one you are a fucking moron.
abortion bans do not outline what constitutes a medical emergency. they do not use the language that is used in medical practice. they are not written by doctors. some bans say that an abortion can only be performed if there is an immediate threat of death or disability; an imminent one, even if very very likely, doesn’t count. the missouri ban originally specifically stated aborting an ectopic pregnancy, a pregnancy that will never develop into a baby and will rupture and kill you, was illegal. the people writing these bills are not doctors. all of the language is vague, using phrases like “good-faith knowledge” and “reasonable” and “standard medical practice” and “ordinary”, concepts that are entirely subjective.
here is the reality you are creating:
a person, according to their own judgment and knowledge of themselves and their body, is in need of an abortion. because of a ban on abortion, they are not able to simply acquire one like they would any other medical procedure. instead, the decision on whether they need one is entirely in the hands of a doctor regardless of what the patient wants or thinks. a doctor who is under the threat of legal repercussion if they make the ‘wrong’ decision. a doctor who has no specific or medically-accurate legal guideline on how to avoid making the ‘wrong’ decision. a doctor who, even if they genuinely and truly believe the abortion is necessary, could still be found to have made the ‘wrong’ decision, because the legality relies on subjective and nebulous language.
in other words, if a person is in need of an abortion, they can not choose to get an abortion. instead, they have to rely on someone else to choose for them, someone who has significant legal and financial incentive to choose not to.
that is not safe. that is not ethical. that is how people die. that is how people have died.
in 2012 in ireland, 31 year old savita halappanavar died of septic shock after going into early labor and not being able to birth the baby on her own. doctors would not operate to remove the fetus until they no longer detected a heartbeat, per ireland’s law, and by that point she was already experiencing organ failure and she died soon after.
just last year, in poland, a 30 year old woman identified as izabela died of septic shock after she went into early labor. the fetus had previously been identified to have numerous severe defects, and izabela had wanted an abortion then, but was denied. her water broke at 22 weeks, but labor was not progressing. she once again asked for an abortion, fearing sepsis, but doctors said they couldn’t do anything until the fetal heartbeat stopped. when it did, izabela’s heart also stopped on the way to the operating room.
your exceptions do not work. either you allow people to advocate for themselves and their health, or people will die. that is the reality. regardless of your views, regardless of your intentions, this is what happens.
