In the months since Roe v. Wade was overturned, media outlets have been hard at work repeatedly and intentionally blurring abortion and miscarriage together.
In a pro-abortion article from the Everymom, treatment for ectopic or otherwise nonviable pregnancies, as well as dilation and curettage procedures to remove the fetus after a miscarriage, were counted among stories of elective abortion.
Last month, a New York Times op-ed wondered, “Why Do We Talk About Miscarriage Differently From Abortion?” It is “the anti-abortion movement,” the article complained, that “has forged a cultural bright line between the two experiences, promoting dueling narratives of ‘bad’ mothers who voluntarily cause fetal death versus ‘good’ mothers who grieve unpreventable pregnancy loss.”
But as anyone who has had a miscarriage can tell you, the difference is pretty clear. No one chooses a miscarriage. And women overwhelmingly choose abortion for reasons other than their health.
Nevertheless, the narrative that women will die without access to abortion on demand, perpetuated by the likes of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), persists. This dishonest clouding of the meaning of anti-abortion laws predates the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, but in the past few months, it has only gotten worse.
So it’s not surprising that after telling the world about her miscarriage two years ago, Chrissy Teigen would reframe the story, saying what she actually had was an abortion.
The model and wife of singer John Legend told the crowd at a summit last week, “Two years ago, when I was pregnant with Jack — John and my third child — I had to make a lot of difficult and heartbreaking decisions. It became very clear around halfway through that he would not survive and that I wouldn’t either without any medical intervention.”
It was after Roe was overturned, Teigen says, that she realized what had really happened. “Let’s just call it what it was: It was an abortion,” she said, “an abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance. And to be honest, I never ever put that together until, actually, a few months ago.”
We know little about what went on in that hospital room, and it is a tragedy that this mother lost her little one. What is deeply troublesome, though, is that pro-abortion writers are using this story as an opportunity to advocate abortion across the board.
A Washington Post headline from this week reads: “Chrissy Teigen has shown what abortion is. Some refuse to accept it.” Columnist Kate Cohen argues that because Teigen says she had an abortion to save her life, “abortion should be treated as what it is: a medical procedure.”
Yet, she writes, this medical procedure is not simply a last resort to save a woman’s life: “Abortion is a medical answer to a problem — either an unwanted pregnancy or a wanted pregnancy gone terribly wrong.” In other words, because abortion may be sometimes necessary, it must be always available.
In the Everymom, a writer surmises, “Teigen isn’t the first and will not be the last to make the unimaginably difficult (or not) decision to end a pregnancy. Unfortunately, though, she may be one of the last who had safe, reliable choices available in the midst of making those decisions.”
The conclusions here are that “abortion is healthcare” and that women need it to be generally legal so it can save their lives.
But women’s lives are no more in danger now than they were this spring before Roe was overturned. Pro-life abortion laws in every state contain provisions for the life of the mother.
Among states where stricter abortion bans went into effect after Roe, “each of these states permits abortion in those rare and heartbreaking circumstances when it is necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman,” according to a report by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute. “Physicians can make this determination based on their ‘reasonable medical judgment,’ a standard very common in the medical profession and used for any case involving medical malpractice litigation.”
Abortion is a difficult issue on which there is just as much moral ambiguity as in any other medical situation in which more than one person is involved. Doctors should work tirelessly to protect the life and health of a mother and her baby. So let’s not pretend that banning abortion after a healthy fetus has a heartbeat or can feel pain will harm the mother in any way. The existence of tragedy should be a motivation to develop medical science, not an excuse to end the life of an unborn baby for any reason at all.
