Abortion will soon be illegal in my home state of Georgia, the state with the worst maternal mortality rate in the country, and a higher maternal mortality rate than 100 other countries. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals just lifted an injunction that prevented Georgia’s abortion ban from going into effect.
In its suit, a group of health and abortion clinics alleged that Georgia’s abortion ban, which bans abortion around 5-6 weeks when fetal cardiac pole activity is detectable, was unconstitutional. Prior to the end of Roe v. Wade, the court issued an injunction staying the law from going into effect. Under the Dobbs decision, the court ruled that the ban was now constitutional, lifting the injunction and allowing the law to go into place.
How many women will now die in Georgia? How many will die across the country, slowly bleeding out or succumbing to infection while begging for care their doctors are legally prohibited from providing? Pregnancy was, for most of human history, a leading cause of death. With the very procedures that once saved lives now banned or facing legal uncertainty, it may regain that status.
The last few weeks have brought us the harrowing stories of a Louisiana woman forced to labor and birth a dead fetus, Texas women developing sepsis as doctors deny them care for inevitable miscarriages, or a 10 year old forced to flee her home to avoid giving birth to her rapist’s baby. And in a clear effort to show that these stories are indeed the intended effect of anti-choice laws, the Idaho GOP just rejected an abortion ban that would allow an exception for the mother’s life.
A few weeks ago, I wrote that abortion restrictions could affect the lives of at least a third of pregnant people. What anti-choice men seem not to realize is that the care for a miscarriage is identical to the care for an elective abortion. It’s a procedure millions of women have every year. And it cannot be delayed.
With at least a quarter of pregnancies ending in miscarriage, how many pregnant people will face care delays that destroy their fertility and bodies, or that claim their lives?
How many pregnant people will be told that, sorry, a doctor can’t perform life-saving ectopic pregnancy surgery as long as there’s a heartbeat?
How many pregnant people will be forced to give birth in the developed world's worst, most abusive, and most dangerous maternity care system? And how much will they have to pay for the privilege?
This situation is unprecedented. We’ve never seen the sudden removal of a right that affects half of the population, nor a ban on a life-saving medical procedure.
A few studies have sought to estimate the potential toll. A preprint just published suggests that the loss of abortion rights will increase maternal mortality by 24%, and Black maternal mortality by 39%. A study published last year estimates a 21% increase in maternal mortality with a nationwide abortion ban.
Neither study looks at disability and serious injuries, which affect roughly 50,000 pregnant people each year. The studies also fail to take into account the real-world effects of abortion bans. Even when miscarriage care is technically legal, even in states with a “life of the mother” exception, the incredibly vagueness of abortion laws leaves doctors wondering what they can and cannot do. They’re left seeking legal counsel and ethics board approvals when they should be tending to patients. They’re left filling out paperwork when seconds count.
Nearly half of women seeking care for pregnancy report having previously experienced an abortion.
Nearly half of women may eventually need care for a doomed pregnancy.
Republicans don’t care what happens to them. This is about criminalizing female bodies, not protecting life. As always, the suffering is the point.