In Defense of Late-Term Abortions

Last week, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina introduced proposed federal legislation that would criminalize any abortion in America after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In explaining his decision, Graham told reporters that he picked that number because “the science tells us…the nerve endings of the baby are pretty well developed and the child feels pain.”

In reality, there is no scientific consensus on when a fetus feels pain, but Graham’s explanation is telling. It is yet another example of how for Republicans, when it comes to abortion, the woman who is carrying a child is an afterthought. She is, in effect, the crunchy outer shell of a fetus.

The reality is that very few abortions in America occur after 15 weeks. More than 90 percent of terminated pregnancies occur before 13 weeks, more than 7 percent happen between 14 and 20 weeks, and just around 1 percent take place after 20 weeks. But what’s important to understand—and notably absent from Graham’s proposal—is a recognition that most post-15-week abortions occur with women and families who want nothing more in the world than to be parents.

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Early in the mid-trimester is when doctors can detect fetal or genetic abnormalities, and usually, that tragic diagnosis is what leads women to get late-term abortions.

Republicans like to portray Democrats as heartless and cruel for supporting late-term abortions, as if women and their doctors are not acting out of malice or some prurient desire to inflict pain. Indeed, Graham’s gambit is part of a larger Republican effort to refocus the abortion debate by attacking Democrats for supporting abortions so close to the end of a pregnancy. (Although, since a typical pregnancy is 40 weeks, math tells us that 15 weeks is less than half of a full pregnancy, so it’s hard to see how that can be classified as a late-term abortion.)

The sad reality is that a second or third-trimester abortion is, more often than not, an act of love and a response to a unimaginable tragedy.

Indeed, I can relate from my own experience as a father. When my oldest child was in utero, the results of a final blood test—known as a quad screen (which is usually done after 15 weeks)—showed a higher than normal likelihood of trisomy 13 or 18, both serious genetic disorders. We were told to immediately get an amniocentesis because if there was a serious problem, there’d only be a week or two to schedule a legal abortion.

The news was devastating. We were desperate to have a baby. But a child born with a profound genetic disorder (like trisomy 13 or 18) is unlikely to live more than a year, and would have significant and debilitating physical and mental defects. We could not, in good conscience, bring a child into the world who would quite possibly spend most of her days in pain and suffering.

By that point in the pregnancy we’d already decided on a name. We’d picked out a stroller and crib. Friends had even scheduled a baby shower for a date after we’d received the news of the results. Terminating the pregnancy would have been an excruciating decision—and it usually is for the small number of women who have late-term abortions.

In the end, we were lucky. The results of the amniocentesis showed no serious genetic disorder, and today, my daughter is a creative, whip-smart, and headstrong sixth grader.

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But not every parent is so lucky. When I first wrote about this issue nearly five years ago, I spoke to multiple parents who were forced to end a pregnancy because of a serious fetal abnormality.

One woman, Jeni Putalavage-Ross, lived in Texas and found out from her doctor, after a fetal scan, that her baby would not survive. She and her husband had also picked out a name. But because of the state’s then-mandatory waiting period for an abortion, she could not abort the fetus immediately. “We had to go home and wait and agonize about our decision while I could feel the baby still moving inside of me. It was torturous,” Putalavage-Ross told me.

Today, her situation would be far worse. Under Graham’s proposed legislation, the only exceptions for post-15 week abortions are rape, incest, and if the life of the mother is at risk. Putalavage-Ross, along with thousands of other women, would be forced to carry that baby to term—against their will. For all of the focus of Graham and other Republicans on the pain experienced by fetuses, virtually no attention is paid to the unimaginable physical and emotional pain this would inflict on a woman.

In addition, there is no thought to the pain experienced by a non-viable fetus or a child afflicted by a horrible genetic disorder. Their only concern, it seems, is the fetus—not the child it might end up being and certainly not the woman who must give birth to it.

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Graham argued on Tuesday that a 15-week ban is consistent with international standards. And while it’s true that many European states limit abortion after 15 weeks, they generally provide broad exceptions and for precisely the unexpected circumstances that may arrive from a mid-pregnancy diagnosis. Lawmakers in these countries actually take into account the science of childbirth and treat women and babies as human beings, not as afterthoughts.

Graham’s proposal is not as toxic as some of the laws now in place in red state America that effectively ban all abortions. His measure is a compromise between what he terms the Democrats’ support for abortion on demand, and a total ban. Though Graham’s proposal would almost exclusively apply to blue states that have few abortion restrictions. It would not supersede the far more restrictive prohibitions across red state America.

But 15 weeks is not a useful or humane middle ground. It treats women like bystanders when it comes to their reproductive and mental health. It’s not based on science or the patterns of pregnancy, And above all, it would only enhance the tragedy of women and families forced to make the unimaginable decision to terminate a late-term abortion.

For Graham and his fellow Republicans, a woman’s pain is of no concern.

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