The Turnaway Study explains the findings of a unique study which follows 1,000 women who sought abortions. Gloria Steinem’s glowing review graces the cover: “If you read only one book about democracy, The Turnaway Study should be it.” Arguably she’s overhyping this book by Dr. Diana Greene Foster, but it was true that I got my hands on it as soon as I could.
For the study that forms the foundation of the book, recruiters went to abortion clinics in the United States that had a second trimester gestational limit and found women who were turned away – that is, denied abortion because they were too far along in their pregnancy – and women who received an abortion just under the gestational limit. Over the next five years, they periodically followed up with these women, asking about their physical and mental health, their aspirations and financial situation, and the well-being of their children.
The goal was to compare the outcomes of women based on whether they received or were denied an abortion. Does abortion hurt women? Is abortion just another medical procedure? Now we have 1,000 women’s perspective on this issue.
The findings of the study are fascinating and don’t lend themselves to quick conclusions. I want to take some time to unpack what the book says, so this is Part 1 in a series of six blog posts about The Turnaway Study. My hope is that by the end you’ll have a clearer picture of the lives of women who seek abortions and how the pro-life message impacts them.
Let’s start with the assumptions made
Dr. Foster begins and ends with the assumption that choice is good for women. Despite this assumption, however, she does ostensibly write for both a pro-life and a pro-choice audience. She works hard to, in her words, “put myself in the shoes of someone who was concerned about the harms of abortion.” I’m willing to take Dr. Foster at her word that she was trying to be unbiased, but the problem is she can’t be neutral, especially when it comes to the heart of the pro-life position: the humanity of pre-born children.
In the introduction, Dr. Foster does acknowledge that this study “will never resolve the moral question of when a fetus becomes a person,” but she gives shockingly little time to even considering the impact of this question on women. The closest she comes to actually dealing with the question of the humanity of the pre-born comes from a story of one of the women in the study who muses, “in the ethics class, we were talking about when is something considered alive. I’ve always thought it was when it has a personality of some sort.” But this question is noticeably lacking from the rest of the book, leaving the reader missing a crucial part of the equation.
When Dr. Foster discusses the children born to women who were turned away for abortion, she says, apparently without irony, that “women’s lives…are not the only lives affected by the ability to access abortion care.” We agree. Pre-born children’s lives are intimately and fatally affected by abortion. But she neglects this entirely, spending the chapter only considering the outcomes of children that made it to birth.
She concludes that, “enabling women to have abortions when they want them increases the chance that they will become pregnant later when they are ready and prepared to parent.” She assumes that future children are interchangeable with the present child, ignoring the reality that each life is unique and intrinsically valuable. She also states that many women “choose abortion with the needs of children in mind,” but we must point out that clearly it is not the needs of her pre-born child that are being considered.
How this plays out in women’s lives
These individual, unique lives lost to abortion are still present in the women’s stories that Dr. Foster tells throughout the book. One example is that of Ariela (all names are pseudonyms), who at 19 chose to abort twins. Ariela’s reasons included wanting to finish school and establish a career, and the book includes her jarring summary that “I gave up two lives for myself.” We are not comforted when she elaborates: “Like, I gave them up so I could have a better job, which I do, and so I could go to school, which I’m halfway there, and to have a better life, which I think I’m doing okay.” Her plans to go to law school and seemingly have a “successful” life ring hollow to those who mourn the lives that were lost.
This oversight by Dr. Foster is revealing of the heart of the abortion debate. As Greg Koukl succinctly put it, “If the pre-born is not a human being, no justification for abortion is necessary. However, if the pre-born is a human being, no justification for abortion is adequate.” If Ariela’s twins are not human beings, then we have no reason to question her decision to prioritize her career. But since we know that life begins at fertilization when a unique, distinct human being comes into existence, no accomplishment will come close to compensating for the tragedy of two lives cut short.
What we are able to resonate with are stories like Jenny’s, who was denied an abortion, had her child, and “started crying at the thought of her then-six-year old no longer being in her life. ‘She is just everything to me.’”
Dr. Foster undoubtedly is aware of the argument for the humanity of pre-born children, but always portrays it as an opinion. She deliberately suggests at times that a woman or those around her could “consider” the pre-born child a baby. But she never confronts the question: what if it isn’t just an opinion, but a woman is actually making a choice to end another human being’s life?
If you are going to ask the question of how abortion impacts women, that must include considering how the loss of her child impacts her. But Dr. Foster is not neutral on this point, deliberately sidelining the central tenet of the pro-life position.
The pro-life movement has thought about the women
While she largely ignores the very truth that motivates the pro-life movement, I generally am willing to take Dr. Foster at face value when it comes to her attempt to be unbiased. However, I must take issue with the way she characterizes the pro-life movement as not even thinking about the women.
She pronounces this judgment by telling a story of a pro-life American politician responding to a journalist’s question of, “’What do you think makes a woman want to have an abortion?” Obviously caught off guard, the politician stammers a bit before offering, “It’s a question I’ve never even thought about.” From that single instance, Dr. Foster concludes that, “In the decades-long battle over abortion rights, this one moment completely captures the disconnect between the politics of restricting abortion and the lived experiences of women who want one.”
In one fell swoop she ignores the many in the pro-life movement, including those of us in the political realm, who have spent countless hours seeking to understand women’s lived experience. People like Frederica Mathewes-Green who detailed the lived experiences of women in her book Real Choices. Or the brave post-abortive women who use their stories to highlight the reality of abortion. Or the countless people across both the United States and Canada that keep pregnancy resource centres going. These centres are devoted to understanding why women are seeking an abortion while promoting options that are best for her and her child.
We have thought of the women. And we have thought of the pre-born child. The reality is that the choice for abortion is not about one person, but two. Some in the pro-abortion movement, like Dr. Foster, will try to claim it is only about the women. Others might view it as woman versus child. But the pro-life movement has the radical belief that we can be for both woman and child.
We’ll delve into that more in Part 2, when we consider what is actually best for women.
Let’s just get something out of the way right now: not everyone is going to like you all of the time.
I know, it’s not fun being unliked. But we can do this.
Sometimes being right is more important than being liked, and as Life Week approaches (next week!) this felt like an important reminder for myself, and maybe for you too.
We’ve been making signs, and already had conversations with a neighbour while outside taking photographs to share. Putting those same signs in my window for a full week, and then heading outside regularly to work in my front garden while keeping an eye on my biker gang of children means plenty more conversations are likely coming my way.
I’m not thinking all those conversations will be negative. Most will probably be pretty quick and vague as people try to get away from me as quickly and politely possible. Some will probably be encouraging, as those who were previously unaware of the status quo of legal abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy become aware and are rightly horrified. The issue of sex selective abortion is also one we can agree on: killing a child because she is a girl is wrong.
But it is possible I’ll trigger something for someone, because yes, abortion is a sensitive issue. Approximately one in four Canadian women will have an abortion. That’s someone I love, someone you love, and almost certainly someone in yours and my neighbourhood.
So, participating in Life Week this year may be more intimidating than going to a March for Life. At the March for Life, you can hide in the crowd – safe, supported, surrounded by others who agree with you about the sanctity of human life. Being an activist at home is different – you are not coming back to your neighbourhood to wind down after a day out marching: you are IN the neighbourhood marching.
And it’s worth it. Approximately 300 pre-born children are killed every day in Canada, and they cannot be heard unless we are willing to speak up. Silence on the issue only leads to death for more babies, and less support for women who are suffering. We are not in this to make friends: we are in this to change hearts and minds and wake our nation up to the injustice of abortion.
The pro-life message is not something to be embarrassed or quiet about: it is a message to be boldly, passionately shared. Life Week is a unique opportunity to do that in your neighbourhood, explaining that you cannot attend a March for Life due to the current restrictions, but are participating in other ways to spread the pro-life message.
Be kind. Listen well. Ask questions. Show your respect for every human life by how you treat every human you interact with. But do not be quiet, and do not be afraid to do hard things at home.
This was my main take away after reading Erika Bachiochi’s article in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy called “Embodied Equality: Debunking Equal Protection Arguments for Abortion Rights”. We are humans. And this has implications for how we approach abortion and gender equality. You can read the entire paper here. It’s written in an American legal context, but she highlights two human traits that have profound implications for abortion regardless of where you live.
#1: Humans have Physical Bodies
Some argue that abortion restrictions are inherently sexist because they only limit women. Bachiochi’s response is very simple – abortion restrictions are not sexist just because it is those with female bodies who get pregnant. This is biological reality, not a sexist limitation imposed by law. It is only women who gestate and give birth.
But is biology unfair here? Do abortion restrictions place a burden on women that is not placed on men, limiting women’s ability to “define the content of their present and future lives”? Putting aside for the moment the way this denigrates motherhood as a future, this argument points out that, while men can walk away from the procreative act seemingly without consequence, women cannot. Therefore, women need abortion to even the playing field – to achieve gender equality.
But that argument assumes something about equality. To even the playing field it presumes “one sex as the standard for equality: the male sex.” But why are we using the male biology and experience as our ideal? Especially when doing so only perpetuates inequality, rather than addressing the real cause of it.
Bachiochi explains: “The legal availability of abortion has worked to detach men further from the potentialities of female sexuality, offering them the illusion that sex can finally be completely consequence-free. The trouble is that, for women, sex that results in pregnancy is fraught with consequence. Women must act affirmatively – and destructively – if they are to imitate male reproductive autonomy.”
Promoting abortion as the equalizer has not helped women. Rather, it elevates the male biology and discourages exploring solutions that might actually better women’s lives when they are facing unplanned pregnancies. In this context, for women to achieve equality they must undergo an invasive medical procedure and sacrifice their child’s life.
This brings us to the second observation by Bachiochi.
#2: Humans are Relational
A pregnant woman is not in a bubble by herself. There is the child’s father. There are her parents, his parents, siblings, friends, coworkers, and the list goes on. The reality is that we are all a part of a relational community whether we realize it or not.
And when it comes to pregnancy, a child is inextricably physically and relationally linked to her mother.
We have no trouble recognizing this connection after a child is born. We acknowledge that parents have duties, legal duties, to at least provide their children the basic necessities of life and hopefully much more in terms of physical and relational needs. We don’t base this duty on the parent’s consenting to take on that duty, nor are they able to revoke consent on a whim. Rather, we recognize a child’s dependence on their parents as placing special obligations on the stronger party.
This is because humans are relational creatures. At our very core, and most starkly from our earliest moments of existence, we depend on those around us. And others rely on us. How do we treat these relationships? Are they extinguishable based on our choice? Or are they something to respect and value?
This is where Bachiochi gets into relational feminism which posits that we are “fundamentally embedded in relationships of interdependence.” This theory rejects the modern view of humans as radically autonomous individuals and argues that the interdependent relationships we have are not to be scorned, but respected. Quoting one feminist, she says: “We are born into some obligations, and some are born to us.”
Abortion ignores this relational reality. It ignores the fact that whether a mother chose it or not, she is relationally interconnected with her child. Abortion ruptures that connection with fatal consequence to the more dependent party. That is a tragedy. The fact that abortion restrictions act to protect the more dependent party is a good thing for both the child and the woman. Whether or not we always enjoy the relationships around us, we cannot ignore them.
In no way does Bachiochi suggest this is always easy for women. She points out that it “may not lessen the hardship of bearing yet another child, or a first child before one feels prepared.” But the alternative is to ignore that we are physical and relational humans. The pro-life movement is well versed in the cost of ignoring the pre-born child’s humanity. And there is most definitely a cost in ignoring women’s humanity.
Abortion might seem to make women more like men, but at the cost of her humanity. You cannot deny the female biology and the reality of the relational context around and within her without dire consequences.
But opening up to the reality of what it means to be a human – and what it means to be a woman – opens you up to all that this life has to offer. As Bachiochi describes, “In the experience of most women, pregnancy is a serious challenge, but one well worth the sacrifices made because of the profundity of the enterprise.”
We’re in the pro-life movement because we believe in human rights. HUMAN rights. Not hypothetical rights. Not ignore-what-it-means-to-be-human rights. But humans-with-bodies-and-relationships-rights. Human rights – with all the joy, the hardship, and the profound beauty that accompanies being a human.
These bubble zone laws continue to be implemented in the complete absence of real complaints against the pro-life presence around abortion clinics. It is generally agreed that the demonstrations or prayer vigils are peaceful. It is not the actions of those present that garners criticism: it is the message. They claim the very message that a pre-born child is a human being is what makes women feel intimidated or harassed, even if it is only displayed silently on a sign.
In a committee hearing prior to the new law being introduced, both pro-life and pro-choice groups were given the opportunity to speak. While a pro-life representative spoke about the peaceful nature of the protests, and the need for freedom of speech, the focus from the pro-choice presenters was on how women seeking abortion (and the doctors providing them) feel when they have their decisions questioned.
Dr. Melissa Brooks, an abortion provider and clinic director in Nova Scotia, sees the bubble zone as necessary because of what pro-life protestors represent: the opinion that abortion is a wrong choice. That opinion, it seems, is not one that can safely be shared with women who are considering an abortion.
“Their point of being there, the reason why they want to stand in front of the clinic is because they want those women to feel shame,” the CBC quotes Dr. Brooks as saying. “They want those women to feel more stigmatized and they want to harass those women. And their, also, intention is to intimidate people like me and the nurses that I work with.”
Does Dr. Brooks honestly believe that people take time out of their lives to stand at abortion clinics because they want to make people feel bad about themselves? Those people are there because they care so deeply that they are willing to offer resources, support, and information to anyone who will listen. They are there because they value life – the lives of the women entering that clinic, and the lives of the pre-born children they carry in with them.
So why do those advocating for bubble zones continually focus on the shame women feel when confronted with a pro-life presence? Do we feel shame about doing what we believe is right? Shame comes from a pricked conscience. Shame is not something pro-life protestors can “make” women feel. These women are making a moral choice. If they feel shame, it is not because someone disagrees with their choice, but because at some level they recognize their choice is wrong.
Abortion is a choice. A choice that is easier, maybe, than the very hard choice of parenting. Simpler, maybe, than dealing with the relationship consequences of keeping a pregnancy. Faster, certainly, than carrying to term and giving a child up for adoption. But, morally and ethically, it has the power to make people feel shame because it is shameful to say that your choice is worth more than someone else’s life, that your future is worth wiping out someone else’s future.
Another bubble zone goes into effect in Canada, limiting free speech. It isolates women from a message that may stop them from making a choice they will deeply regret. It isolates them from information and support during one of the most difficult decisions of their lives. So maybe it makes access to abortion feel a little easier to some. But what abortion providers, abortion seekers and lawmakers need to realize is that a bubble zone will never be effective in making the feeling of shame go away.
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This observation was made by Caitlin Flanagan in a recent Atlantic article in a rare attempt at fairly describing both the pro-abortion and the pro-life argument. She does indeed use a picture – a 3D ultrasound of 12-week pre-born child with fingers, toes, eyelid, and ears. “She can hiccup—that tiny, chest-quaking motion that all parents know,” Flanagan says, highlighting the humanity of the pre-born child and acknowledging the destructive nature of abortion.
And yet, she views legal abortion as a necessity.
The many words Flanagan uses to describe the pro-abortion argument revolve around heart wrenching stories of back alley abortions. They may be hard to read, but it is important to face their reality. While the number of illegal abortions and resulting fatalities prior to-legal abortion are often grossly exaggerated, I have no reason to doubt the credibility of the specific stories Flanagan tells.
And it is a repeat of these stories of deaths due to illegal abortions that Flanagan views as inevitable if pro-life legislation is put in place. Completely accepting the humanity of the child, she still argues for abortion to “save” women, saying, “We accepted that we might lose that growing baby, but we were not also going to lose that woman.”
Flanagan speaks of accepting the loss – but who is supposed to be accepting it? A mother and a father certainly lose their child to abortion. Grandparents lose their grandchildren. Siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles all lose a family member. Communities lose members. As a society we lose a part of us. Maybe Flanagan is even speaking of her personal loss. We all lose to abortion. Do we accept this?
And there is one who loses all. After all, a “safe” legal abortion is never safe for the baby. Is Flanagan speaking on behalf the baby when she accepts their loss?
As a pro-life movement, we should absolutely be concerned about back alley abortions – we have no wish to lose women. We counter back alley abortion for the same reason we counter all abortions. It is not just legal abortions that stop a beating heart – we have the same objection to illegal abortions. We share the pro-abortion movement’s abhorrence for back alley abortions.
If abortion was illegal, we would still have work to do. We would still be busy educating about the humanity of the pre-born child, we would be encouraging the prosecution of those performing back alley abortions (characters Flanagan glosses over in her stories), and we would still be there to come alongside women facing unplanned pregnancies – whether it be with financial support, counsel, or just a friendly conversation.
The pro-life movement does not accept losing a growing baby, nor are we going to accept losing the women. To suggest that the pro-life movement is okay with back alley abortions is to misunderstand both the value of pre-born life as well as our valuing of women.
]]>We want doctors exercising their professional judgment, in line with their conscience. But some believe that professional judgment should take second place to political pressure. Bill 207 may not have enough support to pass because of the political pressure around access to services like abortion and euthanasia. Your MLA needs to hear that you support the right of doctors to practice medicine in accordance with their conscience. Call, email or visit them today!
We all have the Charter protected right to freedom of conscience, but it is becoming essential for healthcare professionals to have more explicit protection. They need to feel free from undue pressure on issues that have a politically charged nature. We don’t want them prescribing unnecessary pain medication that their patient is addicted to. We don’t want them referring for an abortion that they assess a woman is being emotionally coerced into, or offering euthanasia to a depressed elderly person. We also don’t want to force health care providers to provide or refer for these services they may be morally opposed to. This conscience protection bill aims to reinforce the professional freedom of conscience for health care providers, and should be supported.
Health care providers have professional obligations. These include respect for patients and ensuring patient care and safety is the highest priority. It also includes taking responsibility for their own behavior and ethical conduct regardless of the circumstances. This includes ensuring that no patient is abandoned. The conscience protection in this bill does not change these obligations. It means only that a health care provider may need to provide accurate information about a patient’s options, but does not need to provide or facilitate a service that he or she conscientiously objects to.
We are all better off with health care providers who have the freedom to work according to their conscience. Your MLA needs to hear this. If you live in Alberta, send a SimpleMail today and consider giving your MLA a call to let them know how important this issue is to you.
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Abortion provides a bandage solution for problems like intimate partner violence, sexual abuse, lack of social supports, poverty, and myriad other issues our leaders should be focused on. If we advocate for life, we can also call on our leaders to address these related issues. If we call for death as a solution in any area, we can have no basis for an expectation that they will improve standards of living across our nation.
Yes, I agree with Prasad’s premise that health care services should be accessible to all, not just those lucky enough to live in the right place. But abortion is not healthcare. Healthcare seeks to heal, treat or prevent disease. Pregnancy is not a disease, and when serious complications arise there are always options that care for both mother and child. Delivering a baby alive to save a mother’s life, even if it may not survive, is inherently different than killing that pre-born child before removing it from the womb.
Yes, abortion access is spotty across Canada. But so is actual healthcare. If your appendix bursts in Northern Ontario, or you suffer a stroke in rural Saskatchewan, your medical care access is not going to be the same as it would in a major city centre. Abortion should be the least of our concerns – barring labour, pregnancy is about the safest medical condition one can have if you’re worried about getting to the doctor while the symptoms are still present. Framing abortion as a healthcare issue is an attempt to mask the fact that this is a human rights issue.
Prasad states that “abortion remains one of, if not the most stigmatized essential health service in Canada. While the 1988 Supreme Court ruling should have settled that abortion be treated like any other medical procedure, our lack of progress shows how thorny of an issue it still is.” But the Supreme Court ruling never intended to settle the issue. Rather, even the most liberal of the judges wrote that the pre-born child should be given protection at some stage. It left the law-making to Parliament, as is the Court’s place. It is only Parliament’s inaction and cowardice that has left us the only democracy in the world without restrictions on abortion.
The abortion debate is open, it always has been. The majority of Canadians support limits on abortion, and always have. But the status quo brought about by fearful lawmakers means the womb is a uniquely dangerous place to be in Canada. In the womb, we have human beings not considered persons under the law. It is the only place a human being has no legal protection, but is left completely at the mercy of someone bigger and stronger than themselves. We want leaders who will advocate tirelessly for the vulnerable and voiceless, not throw them under the political bus.
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Recent events are a testament to this growing discussion: the backlash to the Canada Summer Jobs attestation, Prime Minister Trudeau’s disallowing of pro-life views in the Liberal party, the Canadian funding of abortions overseas, the movie Unplanned, and the tragedy that a pre-born child cannot be recognized as a victim of crime. Canadians, including the media, politicians, and the general public, are talking about abortion. The debate is happening, and as voters this October we should expect MPs to represent us by engaging in this ongoing debate.
We are seeing this impact already in the lead up to the October 2019 federal election, including last week when Conservative leader Andrew Scheer held a press conference to deal with questions about his socially conservative views, including his view on abortion.
During his run for leadership of the Conservative party, Scheer went on record saying that while a Conservative government would not bring forward abortion legislation, private member’s bills could be introduced, and would be handled by a free vote. Since then, Scheer has not said much. In the press conference, he spoke again about recognizing MP’s freedom of conscience, but said he will “oppose any measures or attempts to open this debate.”
Scheer blames the Liberals for bringing up the abortion issue. But, it’s not only the Liberals who are talking about it; there are a growing number of Canadians who are looking to their elected officials to do something about the lack of abortion legislation. In fact, the case could be made that Scheer is the leader of the Conservatives as a direct result of Canadians who want legislative action on pre-born human rights. Scheer only has himself to blame if he’s wondering why abortion continues to be part of the election narrative.
Canadians are looking for a clear response. The question is, if an MP under a Conservative government puts forward a private member’s bill on abortion, what will Scheer do? Will he recognize that the MP is representing their constituents’ desire to see abortion debated in Parliament? We applaud his commitment to freedom of conscience and his party’s policy reinforcing this. But what does it mean, then, that he will “oppose any measure or attempt to open this debate”? Especially as the leader of a party, Scheer has a lot of influence even beyond government bills.
We have plenty of reasons to believe he will allow the debate, despite some of Scheer’s vague statements. He does still give strong acknowledgement to the freedom of conscience of MPs. Another indication comes from pro-life MP Arnold Viersen’s recent Facebook post:
What should you do?
Politicians are commenting on this because Canadians are talking about pre-born human rights. Keep that conversation going! Use this election period to ask your local candidate where they stand on this issue. Use the questions on our doorhanger to begin the conversation and ask any candidate how they will engage in the ongoing debate on abortion. Let them know that you expect your representative to participate in that debate in Parliament even after this election.
If you find a good pro-life candidate, consider volunteering for them. Continue to build the relationship and have that discussion about the importance of passing laws that recognize pre-born human rights.
As we have said before, the federal election provides a unique abundance of opportunities to talk to candidates about issues that matter to you. Candidates are listening. Let them hear from those who cannot speak for themselves.
]]>Many in Canada were surprised by the acceptance of the law in New York, but, in a video from the Christian Association of Pregnancy Support Services (CAPPS), Dr. Laura Lewis points out that it makes New York no different from Canada. With no abortion law in Canada’s criminal code, viable babies can be aborted at any point if a doctor is found willing to do it.
It is important to note, in the context of late-term abortion, that there is no medical reason to abort a baby in the third trimester to save the life of the mother. If health concerns arose, the baby could be delivered prematurely and cared for in the best way possible, a much different approach than deliberately killing the baby in the womb.
Dr. Lewis also stresses the caution needed in assuming the value of a human life based on a prenatal diagnosis. These diagnoses, which generally come to light later in pregnancy, are often the reason cited for choosing late-term abortion. This vastly underestimates the contributions and lives of those with disabilities, as well as ignoring the high rate of inaccurate diagnoses.
Canadians should never look at New York and feel superior. We set the example they chose to follow, of complete disregard for human life in the womb. There is no good reason for this disregard there, and no good reason for it here. That is why we continue working to change hearts and minds on the value of human life in its earliest stages, and to impress on our elected leaders their responsibility to defend children in the womb.
Read our position paper on why abortion is never medically necessary, and should never be considered health care.
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But wait.
Abortion is taxpayer funded, so who does “cheaper” really benefit? If the government is pushing something because its budget-friendly, can I trust that it’s in my best interests?
“Done in the comfort of your own home” sounds a lot like a euphemism for “do-it-yourself abortion.” I thought we wanted to move away from back alley abortions, where women handle things themselves. If abortion is a medical procedure, shouldn’t a medical expert be involved?
At least it is proven effective. But what if I change my mind, and want to keep my baby? Will I be able to get a prescription for an abortion reversal, or will it be too late because this medication is just so effective?
No ultrasound. This is great – I live in a rural community and might not be able to access one quickly. But, we’re trusting that my estimated date is accurate, that I am definitely 9 weeks pregnant or less, that this pregnancy is absolutely in my uterus, not ectopic. I appreciate the confidence in my awareness of my own body, but I’m not sure I’m willing to stake my life on it. Will it be safe for me to take the pill if I’m actually 12 weeks pregnant? If I start hemorrhaging, what do I do? I don’t have great access to emergency care, and it could be awhile before an ambulance gets to me.
The abortion pill comes with a lot of questions, and not a lot of good answers. Abortion activists focus on Mifegymiso as a way to increase abortion access, especially in rural and remote communities. Since these communities often have lower income women and the least access to ultrasound machines and doctors, they advocate for the removal of “barriers.” This means ensuring the pills are provincially funded, eliminating the need for an ultrasound prior to getting a prescription, and allowing pharmacists, nurses and nurse practitioners to prescribe the medication.
Activists have been very effective in removing perceived barriers to access for the abortion pill. Despite these successful efforts, however, recent reports find that access still remains centred in abortion clinics as the main prescribers. While prescribing pills may be less invasive than inserting a vacuum into a woman’s uterus, the outcome is exactly the same: the death of a human child at some stage of development. A simple fact that abortion activists do not want to accept is that most doctors, whatever their reasons may be, do not want to be abortion providers, regardless of the means. Abortion pill usage rates are climbing, but they are being prescribed by the same people who were doing the surgical abortions, sometimes to the demise of surgical business. It remains to be seen whether this continues; if so, the pill is only a change in method, not prevalence.
As pill usage rates climb and safeguards are eliminated, there is much reason for concern. Moving abortion to our homes will only increase the sense of isolation and sole responsibility women feel when facing an unplanned crisis pregnancy. Many women cite a feeling of desperation when they discover they are unexpectedly pregnant. Desperation and isolation are not something anyone should be promoting for Canadian women. While the abortion pill purports to give women more control over the abortion experience, in fact it further puts the onus of pregnancy (and, by association, child-rearing) on them alone.
As a culture we have dehumanized and devalued pre-born children. Advocating for ubiquitous access to Mifegymiso devalues women as well, by taking a “do-it-yourself” attitude to a life and death issue, and leaving women to deal with the consequences.
Cheap, convenient and highly effective – Mifegymiso is what every medication should be. So, if it wasn’t for the loss of pre-born human life and the lack of caring for women’s health and well-being, I would be totally on board.
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