Women and doctors have questioned what kinds of abortions are allowed after Roe v Wade
As many states in America have introduced a partial ban on abortions many questions have risen as to what kinds of abortions are allowed as unclear wording has caused confusion for doctors.
After the Supreme Court’s judgment on the Roe v Wade case earlier this year many states have brought in abortion bans.
In some states the abortion bans have unclear guidelines over what abortions, if any, are allowed.
One such state is Texas which has very strict abortion laws, but abortion is allowed is there is a threat to the mother’s life.
This means women with pregnancy complications can find difficulty in receiving medical treatment, as explained by Texas doctor, Amanda Horton, who specialises in high-risk pregnancies. She stated:
“We can say, ‘If you’re interested in pregnancy termination, that’s always an option. But it’s not an option for you in Texas’. And that’s really where the counselling begins and ends.
These are people who love their unborn baby, and who, through no fault of their own, have been challenged in ways that they never expected.”
Now when she meets patients with similar dilemmas she claims she has no choice but to say “We can’t help you, good luck”.
Numerous other states have similar abortion laws whereby abortion is allowed for “medical emergencies”, but this has caused confusion over what constitutes a medical emergency.
One case reported in the New York Times reports one Texas woman’s ordeal as she spent 48 hours in “agony”, sitting in the bath while the water turned “dark red” as she waited to give birth only to have suffered a miscarriage.
Previously when the woman, who remains anonymous, had suffered a miscarriage, she was given a procedure whereby tissue is removed from the uterus. However, after a law was brought in in Texas had implemented a banning private citizens to sue anyone who helps perform an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, she claims the experience was far worse. She stated:
“It was so different from my first experience where they were so nice and so comforting, to now just feeling alone and terrified.”
Doctors have warned politicians that such occurrences could become more likely in the future. Daniel Grossman, an obstetrician at the University of California, stated:
“It’s very dangerous when legislators who have no experience in the area of medicine are legislating about how we can practise medicine, and prohibiting us from providing the standard of care.”
Another example came with the story of Nancy Davis from Louisiana after she was told by doctors she was not allowed to terminate her non-viable pregnancy.
It was found that Davis’s baby had acrania, where the foetus doesn’t develop a skull and so cannot survive. She said:
“Basically, they said I had to carry my baby, to bury my baby.
I want you to imagine what it’s been like to continue this pregnancy for another six weeks after this diagnosis.
This is not fair to me, and it should not happen to any other woman.”
She also claimed doctors “seemed confused about the law and afraid of what would happen to them”.
US Senator Lindsey Graham announced a bill to block all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and a national law banning abortions except for a woman whose “life is endangered”.
However, Dr Grossman claimed it is impossible to make a list of every condition that could be classed as a medical emergency. He added:
“It doesn’t work that way. In medicine there’s a lot of grey areas and uncertainty.
If there’s a 20% risk of death in the next month if they continue the pregnancy, that’s a tremendously high risk. It would be the standard of care to offer that patient termination.”
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