This Week in Abortion - October 22
A collection of good reads, events from the week, and occasional insights from me, Rachel Leven.
This week’s newsletter starts with an intro to writing on viability. I am aiming to write more posts like this at least every two weeks, but they take time to do right. As always, please let me know if you have thoughts or suggestions.
Out of Balance
Back in July, during the first Senate Hearing on abortion, Sen. Cornyn asked one of the witnesses “Do you think a baby that is not yet born has value?” The exchange that follows is brief and infuriating. Cornyn keeps trying to get Prof. Bridges on the record saying that a baby in the womb lacks value, while she avoids his trap by not answering his question and instead insisting that a pregnant person’s life has value.
As uncomfortable as it is to watch, this exchange keeps coming back to me. Strip everything away - political struggles, power struggles, constitutional rights, even healthcare - and what you are left with is the fight these two are having. The Cornyns of the world insist that a fetus is of primary and independent value, to the point that a pregnant person should risk her own life carrying it, while the Bridges’s argue that the person carrying the fetus along with innumerable other tangible responsibilities and hopes and dreams, is of primary value and imply - though rarely express - that a fetus does not have an independent value of its own. Its value is in the eye of the beholder, or rather the holder who is - even in the best of pregnancies - sacrificing herself to sustain it.
This balance is one that humans have lived with - mostly without controversy - for a very very long time, and probably longer. But, it’s also one that used to be simpler. Scientific advancement brought us the ability to have safe abortions later into pregnancy, it also gave us more information about what is going on in there, and gave pre-term babies better chances of survival. All of these changes are individually good, but as a whole, they make finding that balance more complicated.
“Viability,” is the modern world’s sanitized way to find this balance. As a practical matter, I also think it’s where most state laws are headed long term. But, not only is a set definition for viability difficult to pin down, it’s also not the only way to look at things. So, for the next post, I’m planning to cover what viability even means and how it became a thing in the first place.
If you have any thoughts, good reading material, or people you think I should be talking to as I continue with all this email me a thisweekinabortion@substack.com
Good Reads
This photo array of what an early pregnancy looks like is stirring up a lot of controversy both because people, in general, are surprised by their blandness, but also because anti-access groups are attacking them as misleading and showing their own - misleading - pictures using a microscope. As I was saying earlier, technology has complicated the discussion around abortion including our individual emotional response.
Good listen from Weekend Edition last Sunday on the dangers of childbirth for young teens.
Events in the News
The Pentagon announced that it “will provide travel funds and support for troops and their dependents who seek abortions but are based in states where they are now illegal.”
What is with South Carolina state legislators? Some of you may recall this drama from back in September. While nearly every other conservative politician in the country tries to avoid talking about abortion, these guys keep trying (and failing) to pass total bans because members of their own party won’t have it. One really telling quote, “Republican Sen. Katrina Shealy is the fiercest advocate for children in need in the Senate and unabashedly calls herself pro-life. But she couldn’t support a total ban. She said exceptions are needed and adds time is needed to see what the roughly six-week ban does to the state’s social services and health networks.”
Legal Updates
Utah’s Supreme Court “declined for now to lift a judge’s injunction on the state’s near-total abortion ban,” which means abortions are allowed until 18 weeks.
South Carolina Supreme Court heard arguments over the legality of the state’s six-week abortion ban. Don’t expect a decision anytime soon.
“North Carolina abortion providers on Monday asked a state court to allow health professionals other than physicians to provide medication abortions.” Currently, only three other states allow this.