Medicine should not be guided by culture, religion or politics.
 | By Sarah Wildman Staff Editor, Opinion |
Reproductive rights activists have long said: If abortion is separated from health care, the consequences will be dire. |
But it is one thing to hear, "Be careful! This might happen!" and another thing to read the story of a woman's final words and realize that she may have died as a direct consequence of laws that restrict abortion access. |
In writing today's essay, 'Her Heart Was Beating Too': The Women Who Died After Abortion Bans, I spoke with a number of abortion rights activists about why it often takes a tragic, dramatic case to underscore just how perilous the consequences are for women when abortion is banned or severely restricted. |
The issue is not a hypothetical one. There are recent tragic examples from Poland and Ireland of women — with failing, but wanted pregnancies — who died after doctors delayed their care because there was a fetal heartbeat. |
In both cases, the women's stories became rallying cries for abortion rights. The Irish case contributed to the overturning of the nation's Constitutional amendment banning abortion in 2018, while outraged protesters have filled the streets in Poland in recent weeks. |
Albihe Smyth, one of the leaders of the Irish abortion rights movement, talked to me about how one tragic death put a face to the risk women contend with when abortion is banned. "Women were outraged," Ms. Smith told me. |
As I worked on the story, I spent hours looking back at the history of women who had suffered or died before Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973, stories that were offered as testimony as states reconsidered their abortion access. These stories were not confined all to the distant past; around the United States, states have been chipping away at abortion access for the last several decades. I read, too, about the experiences of women on these shores with wanted pregnancies whose fetuses were prioritized over their own health and safety. So much preventable loss, so much pain. |
With Roe v. Wade's future uncertain, activists believe that the time to prevent fresh tragedy is now. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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