Banning abortion is what's extreme
This piece is in response to Jon Fleischman’s July 10th editorial “Prop. 1 kills all limits on abortion,” which is not only flawed but deeply sensational.
Proposition 1 will ask voters to amend the state constitution to protect a woman’s right to reproductive choice, including access to abortion and contraceptives. The issue has taken on special urgency since the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.
Fleischman says California’s ballot measure would allow abortion “up until the moment of birth.” A woman, he writes, could have an abortion “the very day her child is due.” The phrasing exaggerates and distorts the issue, which is easily fleshed out with a simple ten-minute Google search.
According to the CDC’s Abortion Surveillance Data, 91% of abortions occur before 13 weeks, or the first trimester. Further, 8% occur between weeks 14 and 20, and only 1% occur at the 21-week mark or later. That’s 1% of an estimated one million procedures per year.
Abortions after 21 weeks are rare, expensive and few doctors want to perform them. Understandably so; the process sounds gruesome. But they are all anti-choice people want to talk about. Touting so-called “late-term” abortions is a tactic
Dani Thayer, left, and Marina Lanae, right, both of Tulsa, Okla., hold pro-choice signs at the state Capitol, on April 13, in Oklahoma City.
to manipulate public opinion by generating fear or false alarm. Fleischman’s editorial makes it sound like a woman can be packing her overnight bag for the hospital, experiencing contractions and arriving at the labor and delivery ward only to change her mind and opt for abortion. It’s absurd, and he paints this picture for the sole purpose of scaring us into opposition.
When second-trimester abortions are performed, they are conducted in a medical facility by trained healthcare providers, usually because the fetus has developed abnormalities that could cause fetal death and/or severe risks for the mother. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, non-medical reasons for seeking abortions later in pregnancy include lack of access
to qualified providers and difficulty paying for procedures and their travel-related costs. Now that states like Louisiana and Texas are banning abortion, those challenges will be greater, resulting in more second-trimester abortions.
Fleischman says the language of California’s Prop. 1 is “explicit.” Here is the actual wording: “The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives.”
That phrasing is not explicit. It is exactly as nonspecific as it needs to be to keep the issue where it belongs — out of the courts and into the hands of a woman and her doctor.
The amendment says nothing about when abortion can happen or why. It leaves that up to medical professionals, on a case-by-case scenario, which is exactly how medical decisions should be made.
Fleischman also cites viability as the standard for when abortions are considered acceptable. What he fails to mention is that viability varies. Fetal viability is not the moment when a fetus is guaranteed to survive outside the womb. It’s the time when probability of survival is highest, and it differs for every fetus. It also varies from hospital to hospital, depending on the technology available. There is no medical consensus on when viability begins, so it should not be the only standard for determining access to abortion. Again, that should be left up to a woman and her doctor.
And finally, Fleischman says Prop. 1 will make the United States “more radical than the nations we abhor.” I would argue that forcing women, and in some cases children, to give birth would make us the most extreme. In 2019 in Argentina, an 11-year-old was forced to give birth to her rapist’s baby. Last month in Ohio, a 10-yearold was denied an abortion in her state after being raped.
She reportedly traveled to Indiana for care. That sounds extreme to me.