At 23 weeks chances are good that this fetus is being removed because it is:
a) Already dead b) Suffering abnormalities such as it developed no brain, or had a serious genetic condition that would kill it quickly. c) Was actively dying (not dead yet but would be within a few days, 100% guarunteed, 0 chance of saving it) d) Was actively killing the pregnant person.
Late term abortions, as shown here, make up only 1.5% of all abortions. The above four reasons are the only reasons such procedures are performed. Almost every abortion performed after 20 weeks is done on a wanted pregnancy. So you know what that means? You’re calling people who miscarried murderers. You just implied people who had a miscarriage or would have died murderers. How dare you call yourself pro life for that.
Now for the fun fact: They used to use a different procedure for these abortions in which they removed the fetus intact and allowed these people to grieve for the intact fetus, have pictures, etc. Pro lifers decided people losing a wanted pregnancy should not be allowed to grieve an intact fetus and we were left with this.
Congrats. Your movement is the reason they use this one now when people lose a wanted pregnancy late into the pregnancy. Your movement is intentionally making it harder for people to recover from the lose of a much wanted pregnancy. It’s your movement who left grieving people with this instead of allowing them something easier to deal with, something that would let them hold their deceased fetus.
Congrats. If you think you were ‘saving’ something think again. You’re hurting born people. You’re hurting people who lose a wanted pregnancy by shaming this abortion procedure. And you’re movement is the reason this is procedure doctors are forced to use now. You’re probably an awful and mean person to tell people losing a wanted pregnancy that they’re killers.
This is the post that made me pro-choice. Glad to see it still circulating.
I lost a baby brother at something like 14 weeks because he’d attached to the uterine wall backward, and when he started kicking he tore himself away and hemorrhaged to death.
You goddamn “pro-lifers” were ready to let my mother die with him rather than “killing him before God’s time.” He was already dead; it was a matter at that point of him bleeding out. My mother was bleeding with him. My mother was dying with him. And the hospital she was in? That fine pro-life hospital? Refused to let her transfer to another hospital to abort. She had a ten-year-old and an eight-month old at home, but making sure Joey didn’t die “before God’s time” was more goddamn important than making sure my mother survived.
My mother asked the nurse if she’d take pictures, saying that the ultrasound images were really blurry and she’d at least like something to remember him by. The nurse, after Joey was dead and my mom was in recovery, threw pictures on my mother’s bed. This fine pro-life nurse gave my mother pictures of a baby that was jet black where he wasn’t blood red. He didn’t even look human. And she threw the pictures in my mother’s face, like it was her fault that there was a terrible, terrible biological mistake that made it impossible for her baby to survive.
We wanted him. Not that the fact that you’ll notice he already had a name picked out would’ve clued you in. I would have had a baby brother just a year younger than me. My sophomore year in college I spent a lot of time crying alone in the student union, thinking it wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, I should be taking my brother to dinner with friends or helping him study for his first midterms. I’m a big sister with no little brother to show for it, and there was a year that pain and loss came back eighteen years after the fact to wound me when I least expected it. There was a year when there were songs I couldn’t bring myself to listen to without crying because they reminded me of what I could have had. And I still wish, I still wish, they’d aborted him. Because the end result would have been the same. And my family would have been spared a world of pain believing we were losing brother and mother both. I was in ICU at the time after an allergic reaction that left me unable to breathe. How do you suppose my sister felt? Mother dying, sister dying, brother dead—just a matter of time on that one. Ten years old, watching her entire family struggling to breathe, struggling to live.
And you motherfuckers would call my mom a murderer for this. And you cared more for a baby already dying than you did for the two already born who needed their mom.
Fuck you. You’re not pro-life. You’re anti-woman, anti-family, anti-compassion and anti-love.
Someone on my FB shared this photo and I had to go sit in silence for awhile at the stupidity of her comment that went along with it. Most people don’t wait so late into a pregnancy and randomly decide ‘kill the baby’ because they want to. What the fuck is wrong with people.
Why I will always be pro choice
I’m absolutely crying right now
This really pisses me off, because last year my cousin Emily (Emmie) actually did die from not being able to abort her baby. When she was just under 20 weeks along with her second daughter they found out she had a condition which causes high blood pressure and protein in urine. The doctors gave her like a 5% chance of being able to bring the baby to term with both of them surviving. She and her husband were DEVASTATED.
She regretfully scheduled an appointment to terminate, but people found out. She went to church for comfort, so that she would have people there for her when she would need them but she got the opposite. Her church threatened to ex-communicate her, even though she tried to explain she didn’t wantto abort, she had to to survive. People told her that a good mother would be willing to risk her life for her child, and sent her letters saying she was going to hell and threatening to physically attack her if she went through with it. Someone even told her four-year-old daughter, who was really excited about getting a little sister, that “You aren’t going to get a little sister because mommy is going to kill the baby.” They told that to a FOUR-YEAR-OLD!The harassment got so bad that on the day of her appointment, she didn’t go. About a later her liver started to fail, then her kidneys. Within a few days she was dead. They did deliver the baby at 23 and a half weeks, but she didn’t survive more than a few hours.
Of course the church held a big memorial for her and the baby, going on and on about hour strong she was and what a great person and mother she was. And how it was a tragedy that she was taken so young but “god works in mysterious ways.”
BULL FUCKING SHIT! Emmie was already vulnerable and distraught and she went to those people looking for comfort and they turned on her so brutally that she was too terrified and ashamed to have a necessary medical procedure. That’s NOT pro-life. That’s not even anti-choice, because she didn’t have a choice, she NEEDED that abortion to save her life. That is pro-birth. Congrats, the baby was born. She lived for 2 hours and 48 minutes, the entire time in pain, but she was born. Mission accomplished. But now the baby’s dead, Emmie’s dead at only 28 years old, her husband is a widower, and her now 5 year old daughter gets to live the rest of her life without a mother.
Because hormonal birth control methods are often prescribed for things OTHER than preventing pregnancy, like ovarian cysts and hormonal imbalances. An ex-girlfriend of mine, for example, had an ovarian cyst that caused her black-out level pain if she went off the pill and as a student she could not afford the incredibly invasive surgery to have it removed.
And how about cases of rape? If a woman’s on birth control, wouldn’t that help her not get pregnant? Are you so privileged that you can’t see that not every time a woman has unprotected sex it is consensual?
No one is asking for the government to pay for birth control. They are asking insurance providers to cover it. And frankly, unless you’re a doctor, I’d avoid talking about what should or shouldn’t be covered by insurance as “medically necessary.” Erectile dysfunction may be a medical condition, but it has no effect on a man’s life but his ability to have sex. It’s not a medical condition that requires any treatment in order to prevent serious health issues or death. Stop acting like it’s a critical condition in need of immediate treatment. You can easily choose not to have sex if you can’t afford the pills or your insurance doesn’t cover them. That’s exactly what you’re telling women they should be okay with regarding birth control pills.
In addition to all of this: pregnancy IS a medical condition. Birth control prevents it.
What part of that is so hard to understand?
Oh, wait, I know: common-sense-repelling anti-feminists.
I hate anti-feminists. Look. Here’s a contrast.
Major effects of erectile dysfunction:
can cause lack of sexual drive or ability
can cause embarrassment
Major effects of lack of birth control:
Uncontrolled periods, which depending on preexisting conditions (eg ovarian cysts) can be cripplingly painful and put someone out of action for 1 out of every 4 weeks
as well as making it difficult to have sex for 1 out of every 4 weeks since that is so important to you as a medical issue
and pregnancy, the side effects of which can include
Crippling pain from around the second trimester as the pelvis and hips shift and the back comes under pressure
Hormonal shifts exacerbating depression and other mental disorders
Severe nausea/vomiting lasting ~16 weeks
Dizziness
Exhaustion
Sleep deprivation
Loss of balance
Inability to work
Malnutrition
and that’s if all goes according to plan. let’s talk about miscarriage, which some people are heavily inclined to and therefore unable to carry a pregnancy, wanted or not, to term
Psychologically incredibly traumatic and scarring
Extreme pain, worse the later stage the miscarriage comes, both uterine and muscular, as the uterus is tearing itself up and the body goes into something like a miniature labour
Internal haemorrhaging and loss of large quantities of blood
High risk of potentially fatal infection
and let’s say now that we take this unwanted pregnancy as far as childbirth
increasing rate of maternal death in the US since 2004
up to three full days of excruciating, difficult-to-treat muscular pain
vaginal tearing
blood loss
infection (again, high risk of potentially fatal infection)
permanent pelvic damage
fistula
internal damage leading to incontinence, infection and, oh hey, major sexual dysfunction
postpartum depression
lasting high blood pressure
But of course, pregnancy and gynocological dysfunction aren’t medical issues that need treating, unlike not being able to get it up. It’s not like people die around the world daily from complications arising from these issues. It’s not like anyone’s prevented from working by the crippling pain of their period. It’s not like pregnancy takes vast amounts of expensive hospital visits, scans, a hospital bed, a team of medical staff and so forth. Nope. Pregnancy is just the natural order of things, even if you are incapable of carrying it to term, or are carrying a child you don’t want and can’t care for, or can’t afford the extensive hospital bills and long time of being unable to work. Silly women, quit your whining.
I don’t know if this is exactly Incels but dudes basically trying to compare abortion to rape and calling women who abort rapists…
Now I, and many MANY other women are sadly victims of rape.. so this triggered me to the point of crying and vomiting so I’m sorry if this triggered anyone… I’m still crying and shaking I fucking can’t.. this was in a LOCAL Facebook group and this guy is just a town away!
I don’t care if you’re pro life or pro choice (I personally am pro choice..) but don’t you dare compare RAPE to abortion!
DONT you dare call yourself pro life unless you you donate to poor and struggling families. You aren’t pro life, you’re just pro control and anti choice ❤️❤️❤️ don’t like abortions, don’t have one! If my birth control fails, me and my boyfriend like the option to abort since I’m a college student and he’s a med student, neither of us can take care of a kid RN. And if you care about kids at all, you will know how flooded those adoption places are and how most kids don’t even get a chance and just rot in their. Don’t tell me “don’t want a baby, don’t have sex!” Yeah sure you dumb bitch, that might work with a sex Ed class with pre teens in Sunday school but that shit doesn’t work with ADULTS doing ADULT things. And plus what about 30+ year old married couples that don’t want kids??? Should they not have sex??? KAY thanks :)
In case you guys needed a reminder! ❤️ remember its always YOUR body, even IF a fetus is growing in it! It’s YOUR body, YOUR life, and YOUR choice. Never feel ashamed of making a choice you’ll be supported and loved if you keep it or decide to abort. To all the women that have had abortions. You aren’t a bad person you made a choice, don’t let people make you feel ashamed.
So I keep seeing “pro life feminist!” And in my opinion a real feminist wouldn’t try telling a woman what to do with HER body.. if you don’t like abortions, that’s why you can be a feminist, but to tell another woman what she CAN and CANNOT do with her body??? FUCK OUTTA HERE???
You aren’t a feminist. Sorry. You don’t get to fight for women’s rights only to turn your ass around and scream and cry “WAAAAH YOURE NOT ALLOWED TO ABORT!!!” Like… if you don’t like abortion don’t have one! It’s not that hard guys.
A woman that you don’t even know, her having an abortion will not affect your life so why do you care???
Becuse being pro life is about controlling a woman and her body! It’s NOT about saving children because most these people don’t give a shit after the baby is born.
Sorry if I just offended any pro lifers but we don’t know the situation the woman is in so it’s best to just let her decide what’s best for her. Ive been seeing so many pro lifers trying to put a fetuses life above a developed woman’s life. You won’t change my mind so please don’t try. If you’re pro life Just Keep scrolling its not that hard..
I just want to let everyone know that this blog is not finished, dead, or abandoned by any means. I apologize for disappearing without a trace, but I just recently got a new job after a couple years of unemployment and it has been terrifying and exhausting. Between that and my health problems I just haven’t wanted to deal with the daily struggles of reading and posting bad news and fighting with antis. I’m not really sure what my timeline is for coming back but when I do I think my focus will shift more towards original content, education, and resources and less about daily political events. It’s just too much of a strain to do everyday.
Not only are abortions now illegal after six weeks (which would outlaw at least eighty-five percent of abortions since people can be unaware they’re pregnant at that stage), but any private citizen can sue people who violate this law for ten thousand dollars. People who can be sued includes anyone who “aided and abetted” the abortion—including not only doctors and healthcare providers, but the people like the fucking uber driver who drove you to the clinic.
And the Supreme Court has done nothing about it.
I am afraid.
I am angry.
I am in disbelief that a group of people, with full knowledge of the terrifying consequences of their actions, pooled their resources, wealth, and knowledge to launch this assault on abortion rights. Displaying a dearth of empathy, they plotted around Roe v. Wade by employing private citizens as bounty hunters,people they will pay thousands of dollars to report abortions.
They launched a modern-day witch hunt.
It’s hard to sort out my emotions. I feel like a pile of autumn leaves, whipped into a tornado of glacial reds and frothing golds and everything in between, unable to separate the colors, the movement, the chaos.But there are three things I do know.
you can be pro-life and have had an abortion in the past.
no, it doesn’t make you a hypocrite, you just grew and learned to value the life of the unborn after your own experience. I know many women who became pro-life after undergoing an abortion when they were younger and while pro-choice people will want to completely overlook these women because it messes up their “abortion saves lives” and “women are relieved to have abortions” image, these women still exist.
A lot of people in the US are super worried about the Supreme Court axing Roe v. Wade, but what they might not know is that some states have laws in place that will protect the right to reproductive choice and abortion if that happens. One of these states is the state of Illinois. In 2019, a law was passed that protects abortion rights within the state even if the federal right to an abortion falls. This means that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion will still be a protected right in Illinois. Even before Roe, Chicago was a haven for safe abortions- you just called and asked for Jane.
Now, safe abortion access is the law of the land in IL, and there are several groups who can help you. This post is long, but I think it’s worthwhile. Even if you don’t read all the way through it, maybe save it for later. You or someone you know might need it. If you want to stop now, the TL;DR is this:
f you’re a minor and you can’t tell your parents, get a waiver of notification from the IL Judicial Bypass program.
Schedule your appointment.
Contact abortion funds to get financial aid. Your home state might have s fund, and the Chicago Abortion Fund can help.
Secure housing for the procedure through the Midwest Access Coalition or by talking to the intake staff at the clinic of your choice.
I’d like to start by saying that the closer to home you get your abortion, should you need one, the easier it will be for you… probably. It depends on your individual situation AND your safety. If I still lived in Indiana and I needed an abortion, I’d probably leave to get it done, even though there are abortion providers in Indiana, because Indiana is super hostile and there’s lots of clinic protestors- for example, when I was taking my GRE my senior year at Notre Dame, the testing center was in this little strip mall in Mishawaka next to Planned Parenthood. Despite the fact that the PP in Mishawaka does not provide abortions, there were protestors who yelled at me for going in there. I wasn’t even going to PP. I’d like to say that I said something devastatingly cool but I just ran in flustered. Point being: It really, really would have sucked if I was there for healthcare instead of a standardized test for graduate school. And that’s a very tame, mild situation! Real abortion clinic protests are often much more devastating!
ANYWAYS. The less you have to travel, the easier things tend to be, if it’s safe to get an abortion where you are and if your state will have protected abortions if Roe is overturned. If you’re not sure what might happen in your state in that case, this map has a clear, succinct overview of the legal status of abortion in each state and all US territories. You will want to click through to that link, because this image isn’t interactive.
[ID: a map of the US with states and territories sorted by their legal protections for abortion into four categories: expanded access in the case of Roe v. Wade being overturned, protected, not protected, and hostile. IL is highlighted.]
So let’s say you live in any of those red states. (Yellow and blue are safe- abortion access is protected there.) Let’s say, worst case scenario, Roe gets overturned and you get pregnant and you want to terminate. You will be able to do that in IL, and it’s relatively easy to do that in Chicago for a relatively low cost and with the benefit of a robust support network of people who want to reaffirm your reproductive choices.
First, if you’re a minor and you don’t want to tell your parents because it’s not safe for you to do so, get a judicial waiver of parental notification. The IL ACLU has a judicial bypass hotline. This will come at no cost to you. Do this ASAP, because it takes time to get it set up! You can do this by calling the hotline at 877-442-9727, texting 312-560-6607, or emailing [email protected].
Next, you need to get an appointment set up. You could get a referral from someone local to you, but this can be tricky- 87% of counties in the US don’t have an abortion provider, and google can lead you to a crisis pregnancy center. They will not help you. If you have a local Planned Parenthood, call them. Even if they don’t provide abortions, they can refer you to someone who can. If you’re coming to Chicago, which this post… kind of assumes you are… you can call any of these groups to talk about your options and what clinics can help you. I recommend starting with FPA or PP; those are two actual clinics. MAC and CAF are funds- they can direct you but they can’t schedule an appointment for you.
You might want to shop around and see which clinic costs the least, and is the most practical for you to get to. FPA has a lot of patient resources, as does PP. Don’t be afraid to ask for financial assistance. The people staffing those organizations have extensive networks and deep compassion for their patients- if the clinic can’t help, they might know who can.
Once you’ve made an appointment, now’s the time to start gathering financial aid. Some insurance, including IL Medicaid, covers it. If yours does not, or if the copay is still too much, this is where abortion funds come into play. Many states have their own abortion funds for state residents, so you might have to look around to see who can help you. I’d start with the National Network of Abortion Funds.
You also need to figure out transportation and housing while you’re in the city to get your abortion. This isn’t super necessary if you’re just coming for the pill abortion, but if you’re coming for a d and c or other surgical procedure, you will be staying for a couple of days. THIS is why I’m writing this up, because abortion funds typically only are able to help cover the financial cost of the procedure. It’s expensive to stay somewhere and it can be absolutely terrifying if you’re on your own! Navigating while you’re in pain from the procedure can be an absolute devil of a time, too! However, Chicago has MAC (contact info above), which is a practicalaccess fund, which means that they help pay for transportation to the city (bus tickets and train tickets) and around the city (volunteer drivers or volunteers who take rideshares with clients), food, aftercare medicine (painkillers, etc.), and housing, and there’s also free access to emotional support staff throughout your stay. This is not just open to IL residents; it’s open to anyone coming to the city for an abortion. ALSO if you go through FPA, they have a partnership with the Hampton Inn a block away from their location where their patients get a discount. If you go that route, just talk to FPA about housing and they’ll hook you up. This can be super helpful if you need some evidence that you’re on a “business trip” or something like that- if you are in a position where you need an excuse for your safety, that might work well.
Hopefully you won’t need this post- but if you do, I hope it helps. Feel free to share it around. If you have anti-choice opinions and you feel the need to share, don’t. This isn’t the space for it; you will be blocked and your comments removed. And then remember that criminalizing abortion won’t stop abortion. It’ll just stop safe abortions. Also, increased access to abortion, funnily enough, tends to be the thing that lowers abortion rates, because increased access to abortion comes part and parcel with increased access to birth control and general health and sex education.
Reblogging this because it’s always relevant… and because an administrative decision by MAC’s incredible leadership means they don’t just do bus and train tickets anymore. They will also help pay for airline tickets if you need to fly. If you are in the US and need to come to Chicago for an abortion, MAC’s got your back.
Also, if you find yourself in a situation where you can’t travel, and you catch it early, you can do a medication abortion at home. This can either be clinician supported through telehealth or it can be a self-managed abortion (SMA). Either way, you can do this entirely online without ever having to go into a doctor’s office or clinic.
Now, this only works early in a pregnancy (up to 11-12 weeks), so if you’re in a situation where you suspect you may become pregnant and you don’t want to be, test early and often if you can. The various help lines can also help you figure out how far along you are.
More resources: https://www.reprolegalhelpline.org/- this link is a good resource for talking about your legal options. If you’re a pregnant person of color, immigrant, or low-income (and using Medicaid) in an abortion-hostile state, I HIGHLY recommend talking through your legal options because you are absolutely targeted by politicians and the US legal system.
You can print these on sticker paper at home if you have it. It’s a good way to get the word out.
As of… thirty minutes ago on Monday, 2 May 2022, Politico got hold of Justice Alito’s draft statement on Roe. It’s not good. We’re probably gonna lose Roe vs. Wade in two months, and that means if you live in a red state, you’re VERY probably going to lose the right to a safe abortion.
I know this is a long post, but if Roe is overturned, it’s not going to stop abortions. It’s just going to stop safe abortions. Abortion access is reproductive healthcare, and a lot of states are going to get really restrictive. Indiana, my home state, has already put a woman in jail for having a miscarriage. Oklahoma lawmakers would rather let women with ectopic pregnancies die than allow lifesaving medical procedures. This is bad, but! Underground abortion networks did exist before Roe vs. Wade, and now we have the internet. We have robust networks in place to help people that the government would rather see dead or imprisoned. Even if Roe is overturned, some states will be safe havens for abortion. Travel to these states can be difficult, but not impossible– that’s what abortion networks and abortion funds are for.
Please save as much of this information as may be relevant to you. And if you’re “pro-life” and feel the need to comment on this post? Don’t. Your opinions and input are neither valued nor wanted. Abortion access is a vital, necessary part of reproductive healthcare.
the best thing that we can do right now to fight for abortion rights is donating to your local abortion fund, especially in states with “trigger laws” or laws that will immediately take harsh measures to shut down abortion rights as soon as roe is overturned. If you don’t know your local abortion fund or states with trigger laws, here’s one in Texas,one in Louisiana,one in Georgia,one in West Virginiaandone in Mississippi (all states with such “trigger laws”). There’s so many more beyond the handful i just listed here but times like these are the time to donate and support the incredible work that these organizations do for their communities.
anyway i said i would do this after the whole thing was said and done… when i was looking for advice i found like “paint your nails and listen to happy music” buzzfeed bullshit so
