Here is my comment (edited for clarity and to avoid identifying individuals) on a social media platform in response to a post attacking a candidate who supports every woman's right to reproductive freedom. I don't often participate in social media arguments on topics like this as I find it rarely useful. However, this particular post was so replete with inaccuracies, and written with language designed to generate outrage rather than share information or offer a perspective, that I felt obliged to speak up.
I began my 5+ decades in medicine before Roe v Wade was decided. I took care of patients who were harmed (and in a couple instances, who died) as a result of illegal abortions. (Note: before it was legal, abortion was quietly available to patients with enough money and connections.) When abortion became legal I worked directly with patients and their families to help them make difficult individual and deeply personal decisions with regard to reproductive health and pregnancies. I struggle when I find myself engaged in conversation with individuals who have not been directly involved in patient care addressing these issues, whose comments use ideologic and religious phrasing and belief rather than accurate medical terminology and fact, and/or whose comments reflect simplistic blanket statements that elide or misstate many of the details and nuances. Here are some thoughts to consider.
1. Murder is defined as the *illegal* taking of a human life with malice.
2. By definition: if abortion is legal it is not murder. (This is why executions and killing by the military as part of war are not prosecuted as murder.)
3. Since murder must involve taking of a *human* life, one needs an agreed upon definition of when *human* life begins (and ends). This is not a science question. It is a very difficult and much argued religious, philosophical, and cultural norm question. Not all religions, philosophies, or cultures define human life (sometimes called personhood) as beginning with conception.
4. Laws that impose one religious definition of *human* life on individuals with different religious beliefs are inconsistent with our Constitutional guarantee that every individual is free to believe and practice their religion.
5. Maine law allows abortion before fetal viability.
6. After fetal viability, abortion is legal only when it is considered necessary by a licensed medical clinician. Clinicians take this very seriously.
6. The article in the BDN did not report a 'drastic increase' in post-20-week abortion, as claimed by a previous poster. There were 13 abortions (out of ~ 2500) after 20 weeks in Maine in 2023, representing 0.5% of all abortions in Maine. I don't have access to the individual case details, but if national data applies, these were all due to either lethal fetal abnormalities or significan threats to maternal health and welfare. In my experience, these are NEVER for convenience and ALWAYS very difficult individual decisions with a great deal of effort and thought involved.
7. In my experience, only a small minority of those who claim vigorously to 'value caring for life at all stages' are equally vigorous in caring for life when it involves things like universal health care, paid parental leave to support families, adaptations and accomodations for the disabled, public health measures to protect the most vulnerable. The number of citizens who would benefit from these supports of 'caring for life' dwarfs the number of abortions by orders of magnitude.
Finally, how one uses language makes a difference. Too many people use language as a weapon rather than as a way to communicate. Examples: falsely claiming that *legal* abortion is murder; 'committing' rather than 'performing' an abortion; referring to a non-viable fetus as a baby or child; referring to a 0.4% increase as 'drastic'.