Abortion is a Health Issue That Affects Everyone — Including Men
Abortion is so much bigger than an undo button for our sexual mishaps
I published this one on Medium a few days ago, but I felt it was important given the Supreme Court leak, so I wanted to send it out again here on Substack for those who missed it. See the footnote at the bottom for more.
When some people think about abortion, their brains instantly conjure up images of irresponsible young women out partying and having casual sex, then going to get an abortion to cover up the consequences.
When other people think about abortion, they have a more realistic view.
They think of the pregnant mother-to-be forced to make the agonizing decision to terminate her baby or risk dying in childbirth. They think of the nonviable pregnancies, the babies whom, if carried to term, have little or no chance of being born alive.
When I think of abortion, I think of my close friend David.*
David is super chill. I consider him a good friend, even if we live far apart. An uncannily gentle human being, David is one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met.
He’s a single dad with a daughter he loves more than anything in the world. After her mother ended up getting hooked on all sorts of drugs, David stepped up to the plate, went to court, won full custody, and has raised his daughter for the past 18 years.
He has a fiery Libertarian streak, he’s an adamant proponent of human and civil rights and a supporter of the U.S. Constitution who reveres Thomas Paine and Christopher Hitchens.
In other words: not your typical Progressive Liberal. Few people think about someone like David when the abortion question comes up.
So often, the conversation is about women.
But David has a secret, one he doesn’t tell most people.
Almost three decades ago, before his daughter was born, he tried to have what would have been his first child. Three months into the pregnancy, doctors broke the terrible news to the excited parents-to-be.
There was no hope of the child surviving after birth.
Due to strict abortion access in his state — and his mother-in-law holding stringent religious beliefs — his child’s mother was forced to carry the pregnancy to term, even though it was non-viable.
It would’ve been so much easier to take a pill and have the nightmare be over with. The couple could’ve tried again and hoped things would’ve been different the second time around.
Instead, they had to wait months for the stillbirth.
It was a nightmare spending months waiting for a baby that would be born dead. Being the standup guy he is, David consoled his pregnant partner through it. They decided to have a funeral.
Eventually, he was forced to bury someone in a casket that was small enough that he carried it as the lone pallbearer.
This almost broke him.
He vowed never to let any harm come to his family ever again. And since then, he’s become the wonderful father he is today.
Abortion affects a lot more people than we think.
People who view abortion as nothing more than an escape hatch for irresponsible behavior are committing the exception fallacy. This is a logical error where we stereotype large groups based on assumptions about or experiences with small groups or individuals.
It’s stereotyping.
It exposes the blinders we have on during conversations about abortion. There are a lot of people impacted by abortion that many of us don’t think about.
A recent study from late 2021, by Amanda Jean Stevenson and published by Duke University, estimated that pregnancy-related deaths would increase by 21% if abortion were banned in the United States. This amounts to only 49 deaths in the first year. But that is expected to rise to 140 deaths per year in subsequent years after the initial year.
This doesn’t consider research from Guttmacher Institute showing abortion rates stay about the same whether it’s legal or illegal.
An ectopic pregnancy happens when a fertilized egg attaches itself somewhere inside a woman’s body other than the uterus. This often occurs in the fallopian tube, which can lead to cases of severe bleeding and death.
One in four women will experience ectopic pregnancy in their lifetimes. Up to 20% of symptomatic pregnancies are ectopic pregnancies, accounting for 1–2% of all pregnancies. That’s just one condition. It’s just the tip of the iceberg.
While the risks to the mother’s life are evident in these cases, what about the fetus? Formerly, we believed that 20% of all pregnancies are non-viable.
Detailed research from 2018 found that the number is greater than that, affecting about one in four women. 25% of all pregnancies are babies who’ll never survive — and these are only the pregnancies we know about, the women who have symptoms and need to be treated by a healthcare professional.
This doesn’t include the spontaneous miscarriages that aren’t reported. When you factor those in, most pregnancies are non-viable — more than half.
A prior study found that 53.2% of all pregnancies carry abnormalities in their number of chromosomes (called aneuploidy), and these abnormalities are responsible for the majority of non-viable pregnancies. When you exclude external factors, more than half of pregnancies carry chromosomal abnormalities that lead to the death of fetuses or small children.
These statistics aren’t just empty numbers.
Each data point represents a real person, or real couple, whose lives were shattered by health issues that they had no control over. They represent would-be mothers who died having a dream of being parents. They represent would-be fathers who lost their wives or partners in childbirth.
They represent countless families who wanted to have a child but were forced to wait and endure a pregnancy that had zero chance of surviving. They convey pain and heartbreak, wrecked lives, hopes, and dreams.
This is why we need the right to choose.
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*David’s name has been changed. He granted me permission to tell his story before I wrote this.
Footnote: Fresh Substack content is coming right up. I also republished another Medium piece that covered a study on how vasectomies enhance people’s sex lives. I shared a bit of my own story as it checks out with my experiences.
There’s a third piece that covers what we can expect should abortion protections be overturned, a rise in deaths in pregnant women, an inability to make critical decisions when genetic abnormalities make pregnancies non-viable, and more. It’s crucial we have all the facts, so I’m republishing these from Medium here and more pieces discussing abortion and the historical sexual control of women are in the works. All are highly relevant to the times and worth reading if you haven’t already.
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