Tag: reproductive medicine
The Anti-abortion Movement’s Attack on Wanted Pregnancies
In the nearly two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, we’ve witnessed the sober consequences of denying abortions to people who desperately want them. Women have been forced to continue pregnancies that have almost killed them, and given birth to children they can’t afford to care for, children conceived by rape, and children they are simply not ready to have. Now we’re seeing the flip side of the anti-abortion movement’s push to give legal rights to
What the “Life of the Mother” Might Mean in a Post-Roe America
Savita Halappanavar’s water broke just after midnight on October 22, 2012, in a hospital in Galway, Ireland, in her seventeenth week of pregnancy. This meant two things: the fetus could not possibly survive, and Halappanavar was at risk of infection if the fetus was not immediately expelled or removed. She begged doctors to terminate her pregnancy—or, put another way, to treat her miscarriage—but they refused. A fetal heartbeat could still be detected, and the Eighth Amendment to Ireland’s constitution effectively