Abortion opponents are in denial about real-life post-Roe 'horror stories': columnist

29 July 2022

During the abortion debates of the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, anti-abortion activists often accused abortion rights defenders of exaggerating when they described the health dangers American women would face if Roe v. Wade were ever overturned. The U.S. Supreme Court finally overturned Roe v. Wade after 49 years when, on June 24, it announced its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization; just as reproductive rights activists predicted, there has been no shortage of horror stories — which abortion opponents are being dismissive of.

Liberal New York Times opinion writer Michelle Goldberg, in her June 29 column, stresses that anti-abortion activists are in denial about the bad things that are happening in the U.S. now that abortion, post-Roe, is no longer a national right.

“Since Roe v. Wade was overturned last month,” Goldberg explains, “there’s been a steady barrage of horror stories, including several of women refused abortions for life-threatening pregnancy emergencies. Rakhi Dimino, a doctor in Texas, where most abortions have been illegal since last year, told PBS that more patients are coming to her with sepsis or hemorrhaging ‘than I’ve ever seen before.’”

The Times columnist, a frequent guest on MSNBC, continues, “Some foes of abortion appear unbothered by such suffering; Idaho’s Republican Party recently rejected language from its party platform that would allow for abortions when a pregnant woman’s life is at stake. Others, however, seem to be struggling to reconcile their conviction that abortion bans are good for women with these evidently not-good outcomes. The result is frantic and sometimes paranoid deflection.”

Goldberg points to Houston-area resident Elizabeth Weller as an example of a pregnant woman whose life, according to NPR reporter Carrie Feibel, was endangered by Texas’ anti-abortion law.

“Recently, NPR reported on the ordeal of Elizabeth Weller, a Houston woman whose water broke at 18 weeks,” Goldberg observes. “With little amniotic fluid left, her fetus had almost no chance of survival. Continuing the pregnancy put Weller at risk of infection and hemorrhage. She decided to terminate, but when her doctor arrived at the hospital to perform the procedure, she wasn’t allowed to because of Texas’s abortion ban. The fetus still had a heartbeat, and Weller didn’t yet show signs of severe medical distress. She waited for days, getting sicker, until a hospital ethics board ruled that she could be induced.”

Goldberg is especially critical of abortion opponent Alexandra DeSanctis, a National Review writer who has accused abortion rights supporters of post-Roe fear-mongering and exaggeration. DeSanctis and others, Goldberg argues, are turning a blind eye to “horror stories” that contradict their anti-abortion narrative.

“I’ll cop to wanting to undermine anti-abortion laws,” Goldberg writes. “I believe they put people’s health at grave risk…. But dismissing an argument because of the motive of the person making it is a classic logical fallacy, the sort of thing you resort to when you’d rather not deal with the argument itself. Members of the anti-abortion movement, including DeSanctis, often claim that abortion is never medically necessary. If they can’t bear to look clearly at the world they’ve made, maybe it’s because then, they’d have to admit that what they’ve been saying has never been true.”

From Your Site Articles