In response to the reader who wrote Hang Your Hat alleging that many abortions are casually terminated even late in pregnancy. Let’s get the facts straight:
Most abortions take place in the first trimester of pregnancy. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that less than 1% of abortions take place after 21 weeks of pregnancy. However, myths about why people pursue abortions after 24 weeks – when the third trimester of pregnancy begins – are a dominant part of the debate over abortion.
People seek third-trimester abortions for two main reasons: because they learn new information – such as about the health of the fetus – or because of barriers to abortion access, often as a result of state policies.
Those are the key findings of a study recently published in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, based on interviews with women from 14 different U.S. states. One woman interviewed, for example, explained that she needed an abortion following a diagnosis at 29 weeks of pregnancy that her fetus’s brain was not developing. Because a great deal of fetal brain development happens after the 24th week of pregnancy, there was no way to diagnose this problem earlier. Now while some strong pro-life believers would force that woman to have that child, others, like myself would say that decision belongs solely to the pregnant woman with consultation of her doctor and the support of her family. It’s a heartbreaking medical and moral decision that no man or politician should dictate.
Again, based on research (rather than beliefs assume women casually terminate pregnancy and can’t make their own moral choices), the other reason women get abortions in the third trimester is because of barriers to abortion access, often as a result of state policies.
Regrettably women who seek abortions in the first and second trimester often face delays in getting care. Typically, these delays are caused by policies, such as bans on public insurance coverage of abortion, forcing women to pay out of pocket for abortion care. Already financially struggling, such women cannot afford an abortion when they first wanted one. By the time they came up with enough money, they are in the third trimester of pregnancy.
Such barriers causing delays of medical care will now only get much worse with the overturning of Roe v Wade resulting in more people being pushed into needing third-trimester abortion care. For people in states where abortion is banned, having to travel across state lines is likely to delay obtaining abortion care, potentially into the third trimester. And people in states where abortion is still legal may also be pushed into the third trimester as an influx of out-of-state patients could lead to delays for in-state patients.
Pundits have made wild claims about people who get third-trimester abortions, such as claiming that women seek abortions up until the moment of a live birth. This is simply not true; medical guidelines strictly regulate situations like this. Understanding the real lives of women who have obtained third-trimester abortions can correct misleading narratives about later abortion.
Finally in his statements about abortion, the contributor to this column also tried to connect abortion with killing in shopping centers and other public areas. This seems to be more a function of unregulated guns than abortion. I would refer to that problem, not abortion, as the real “insanity that is happening in this country every day.”
Joan Davis, RN MS
Huntley resident
