More and more people want to keep it legal
The intensity around the abortion issue is actually growing. Gallup posted this:
-A record-high 69% say abortion should generally be legal in the first three months of pregnancy. The prior high of 67% was recorded last May after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization draft was leaked, showing that the court planned to nullify constitutional protection for abortion.
-Most Americans oppose abortion later in pregnancy, but the 37% saying it should be legal in the second three months of pregnancy and 22% in the last three months of pregnancy are the highest Gallup has found in trends since 1996.
-Gallup’s oldest trend on the legality of abortion finds 34% of Americans believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances, nearly matching last year’s record-high 35% and above the 27% average since 1975. Another 51% currently say abortion should be legal under certain circumstances, while 13% (similar to the all-time low of 12%) want it illegal in all circumstances.
-Fifty-two percent of Americans say abortion is morally acceptable, matching last year’s all-time high. This is 10 percentage points above the historical average since 2001.
These findings align with Americans’ reaction to the Dobbs decision, which the Supreme Court handed down on June 24, 2022. A 61% majority of Americans think overturning Roe v. Wade, thus ending constitutional protection for abortion rights and returning the matter to the states, was a “bad thing,” while 38% consider it a “good thing.” Last year at this time, shortly after the Dobbs draft was leaked, 63% said overturning Roe v. Wade would be a bad thing and 32% a good thing.
As for whether or not there should be restrictions based upon the timing of gestation gestation, I invite you to read this incredible story by Jill Filipovic and tell me if it makes sense that this woman should not be allowed to have an abortion:
Terry and Eric’s nightmare began just a few days earlier at a 15-week ultrasound appointment. It had been a normal day, Terry says. She and Eric had gone out for breakfast in Round Rock, where the young couple lives, and planned to see a movie when the appointment was over. They thought they’d be learning the gender of the baby that day, and had picked out names in anticipation: Ren for a boy, Summer for a girl.
But at the appointment, Terry noticed that her OBGYN was getting quieter and quieter the longer that she looked at the ultrasound. The doctor left the room, and came back with a phone number, address, and instructions to make an appointment with a specialist immediately.
It was at that point, Terry says, that she began to go numb.
Just a few hours later, the couple were sitting in front of a maternal fetal specialist in Austin delivering unthinkable news: Terry’s fetus had not developed at all above the neck—there was no head.
It was a one-in-a-million abnormality, the specialist told them. And while the fetus obviously had no chance of survival, there was still heartbeat present.
In Texas—which enacted a near-total abortion ban in 2021, and a total ban shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned—that was a problem.
Texas’ abortion law doesn’t have an exception for fetal abnormalities, not even lethal ones. The state requires women to carry pregnancies even when the fetus has no chance of survival, a cruelty that Republican legislators don’t like to talk about.
[…]
The couple had to process more than just the horrific news about the fetal abnormality: Terry, herself, was also very ill. And waiting for her pregnancy to end on its own carried a serious risk. She hadn’t been feeling well for a few weeks—she had trouble keeping food down, and was often too tired to get out of bed. Terry figured it was just a difficult pregnancy. But lab work revealed issues with her kidneys and liver, and found that she was severely malnourished and had elevated blood pressure.
As sick as she was, Terry wasn’t at an ‘imminent’ risk of death—not yet, anyway—and Texas law requires the danger to a woman’s life be a “medical emergency” in order to qualify for an abortion.
Because the deliberately vague language of the law isn’t medical terminology, doctors in the state have been left to struggle with just how close to death a patient needs to be in order for them to legally provide care. As a result, multiple Texas women have come close to dying after being denied abortions. (Fifteen of those patients are suing the state right now.)
And while Texas Governor Greg Abbott has claimed he wants to “clarify” the ban to “make sure that the lives of both the mother and the baby can be protected,” the state is actually suing the federal government in opposition to a rule that requires hospitals to give women life-saving emergency abortions.
They had to scrape up 2000 to go to New Mexico for an abortion. They haven’t told anyone they know what happened because they are all anti-abortion. Apparently, they believe she should have delivered a headless baby (which her OB-Gyn told her she should go through childbirth in order to hold it once it was born. Imagine the horror…) Alternatively, she could have waited until she was almost dead and maybe then they would have consented to allow her to abort.
“As much as I wish I had the chance to hold my baby,” Terry said, “I don’t think anyone would want to see something that has no head.” What made Terry feel even worse was that her OBGYN pushed her to remain pregnant even as she explained the serious risks to her health.
“It felt like ‘does my life matter in this, or is this just about bringing a baby into the world for a moment’? It felt like my life didn’t matter, like I could just die and it would all be for nothing.”
Their ride home from New Mexico sounds terrifying too:
After the procedure, Terry had to stay in recovery longer than expected: there had been a bleed behind her placenta that wasn’t visible on the ultrasound, and so doctors kept her at the clinic for a few extra hours to ensure she was safe before leaving. By the time Terry was discharged, the couple realized they’d have to drive through the night to get home.
“He did his best to make sure that I was comfortable,” Terry says. But it’s not so easy to drive for hours after such an emotionally and physically taxing experience. Still—despite how scared Eric was of how poorly Terry looked in the car—they both say they made the right decision to drive all the way home without stopping at an emergency room in a conservative town. “We wanted to get as close to Austin as possible,” she says.
When I pointed out that no one did anything illegal—people are allowed to travel out of the state for care—Terry responded with a sentiment that anyone who follows abortion news knows is true: What the law says and what the law does are two different things.
“We’ve heard things about people getting reported and a whole investigation happening,” she said. Besides, Terry told me, she knows other states are considering the death penalty for abortion. What happens if Texas considers a law like that, and her name is on a list somewhere? She didn’t want to risk it.
That’s also why, a few weeks after the abortion, the couple still hasn’t told anyone. It’s not only fear of their friends’ judgment—but the knowledge that someone could turn them both in. After all, the state’s so-called ‘bounty hunter’ law allows private citizens to sue anyone they suspect of being involved in an abortion (that’s doctors, nurses, even people who drove to the out-of-state clinic) for at least $10,000.
I guess that’s the whole point. It’s not just the restrictions, it’s the intimidation. They want people like this to die for lack of abortion care. There is no other way to see it. It’s monstrous.
An expert in maternal health said what should be said:
Dr. Zera says that when it comes to pregnancy, there should be no government involvement. “The constellation of things that can go wrong in a pregnancy is so vast that you can never write legislation that captures the complexities of it,” she says. “It takes a real lack of humility to think that you could write a good law that could encompass all of that.”
From those jerks on the Supreme Court to the legislatures around the states which are filled with know-nothing cretins who have no qualifications to make these highly personal decision for other people, the suffering that’s been cause by this ruling is overwhelming.
Remember, these are just the stories we know about.
Eric says he tries to let himself feel all the grief and anger, but when he goes to work he has to push it all down. Terry, on the other hand, told me she just feels defeated.
“I wish I could move past it. I’ve never felt defeated before in my life. I failed math tests, I’ve lost sports games, but I’ve never felt defeated. Not like this.”
It all just feels pointless, she says. The suffering, the guilt, the pain and the loneliness. She should have been able to have an abortion close to home, she says, so that she could heal and be in the comfort of her own bed instead of driving for hours, afraid.
And that’s what Terry wants people to understand about her experience and the Texas law: the pain that it caused her. The pain it still causes. “I want to force people to see what they’re doing,” she says.
“I want Greg Abbott or anyone who voted for this law to look me in the eye and tell me that I deserved what happened. That I deserve to be punished by the law for what I’ve gone through. I want them to look me in the eye.”
I wish I thought that would make a difference. But it’s pretty clear that even if they don’t think women deserve this hell, they really don’t care that they have to go through it. They just do not care.
As that graph shows, a tiny number people have abortions in the second and third trimesters. And they are always due to something happening that was unanticipated. In the final trimester is always because the fetus, the woman or both are in mortal danger. None of these yahoos in black robes or yammering the legislatures have any business getting involved in that. These people care more about the sanctity of their gun rights than the lives of women.