Thread by @GreerDonley

When @jillwieberlens & I wrote about how abortion bans are exposing the blurry line between abortion & pregnancy loss for @nytopinion, at least 5 conservative think pieces were written abt our op-ed arguing the line is clear. Here are some examples showing it isn't🧵

https://twitter.com/janevandis/status/1582426312316108800

First & foremost, abortion is not a type of procedure or a medication -- the same procedures and medications used for abortion are also used for pregnancy loss. The question is whether those procedures and medications are initiated before the embryo / fetus has died on its own.

Ectopic pregnancy treatment uses medication or surgery to stop the growth of a pregnancy, often before it has stopped on its own. Some state statutes exempt EP from the definition of abortion. If not, it is an abortion, but the life exception should *eventually* apply.

A ton has been written about why life exceptions are inadequate. Ectopic pregnancy is a good example, as some doctors immediately after Dobbs reportedly forced women to wait until the EP ruptured, exposing them to a genuine threat of life, rather than treat the EP immediately.

The fact that an ectopic pregnancy is "nonviable" does not matter. Many pregnancies survive into the second and third trimester with nonviable fetal anomalies. There is no question that ending these pregnancies are abortions--completely banned in most states after 22-24 weeks.

Many ectopic pregnancies are wanted, and the pain of the loss can feel indistinguishable from early miscarriage. And historically, medical societies have not called these abortions. But it doesn't matter what doctors call it, it matters how legislatures define it.

.@chrissyteigen provides another example. She had a life-saving abortion at 20 weeks due to partial placental abruption, but the media widely reported that it was a miscarriage. She only discovered it was an abortion years later. How is that possible?

She had an induction abortion, where childbirth is induced before fetal viability. This type of abortion is very rare and mostly done for maternal health conditions and fetal anomaly. It allows parents to meet the child and say goodbye, like with stillbirth.

When someone is forced to terminate a desired pregnancy for medical reasons (fetal or maternal), esp into the 2nd & 3rd trimester, the grief felt will be similar to pregnancy loss. And when the physical experience is also the same, the experiences are almost indistinguishable.

I'll also mention fetal anomaly abortions, which are often completed in scenarios where--if the fetus survived to term and were born alive--the parents would have legal authority to refuse life-sustaining measures. (This is not true of all anomalies, e.g. Down Syndrome, but many)

Why are those parents who refuse life sustaining treatment at birth (or whose affected pregnancies end in stillbirth) considered bereaved parents when parents who chose termination are stigmatized? I wrote a whole paper on this in @MinnesotaLawRev here. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Each of these cases are abortions, even though I would argue they are ALSO pregnancy losses. The line is blurred. Abortion is one type of reproductive healthcare that cannot be disaggregated from the rest. Read more from @jillwieberlens & I on this here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Anyway, I'm glad to see NYT exposing the hypocrisy in antiabortion folks distancing themselves from the definitions THEY created in abortion bans when forcing birth would be unpalatable. nytimes.com/2022/10/18/us/…