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The fight over US abortion rights in the year without Roe – photo essay

A look back on the year since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade with the Dobbs decision, and the advocates who aren’t giving up

While the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade sent shockwaves around the country, many activists, physicians and advocacy groups closely engaged in the fight over abortion in the US were not surprised.

Since Roe’s establishment of the federal right to abortion in 1973, anti-abortion advocates and conservative lawmakers have been chipping away at it. Restrictions on abortion increased over the last decade, and by the mid-2010s, seven states had just one abortion clinic left. In Mississippi, where the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that ultimately ended Roe originated, the state’s one clinic did not provide abortions beyond 16 weeks of pregnancy, meaning many people already had to travel to find care.

For residents in a state with the highest poverty rate in the nation, where there is no guaranteed childcare, and where elected officials have refused to expand Medicaid to cover low-income workers, that often meant obtaining an abortion was unlikely. For those who do move forward with pregnancies, the state doesn’t make that easy either. The states like Mississippi that have now passed the strictest abortion laws are also typically the ones with the lowest minimum wages , the least generous policies that support families, least access to education and to health care. In many southern states, the rates of maternal and infant mortality and morbidity are among the highest in the country. The US has the highest maternal death rate of any wealthy country, and Black women suffer most – they’re three to four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications as white women.

The ways the US healthcare system has treated Black people continues to affect their health in profound ways, says Dr Nina Ragunanthan, an OB-GYN who serves the largely low-income Black community in Mississippi’s Delta region.

“You take a group of people that have been so abused for generations,” she says, “the essential stress from that passes down.” Ragunanthan and other doctors say these inherited health challenges combined with ongoing racism mean that abortion bans and their subsequent effects, from medical providers moving away from states with restrictive laws to the potential of criminal penalties, have a disproportionate impact on Black Americans.

In the days after the Dobbs decision, protesters flooded the Pink House, as the Jackson Women’s Health Organization clinic was known. The Pink House Defenders, the group of volunteers who escorted patients to and from the clinic, were used to seeing regular, sometimes heated demonstrations outside, and so tried to keep things as normal as possible for patients, said Derenda Hancock, the group’s founder. “We are just trying to be here for the patients until the last moment.”

Destiny Buchauau had her son at 14 and had her daughter a few months before the Dobbs ruling. She dropped out of school and lives in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, with her children and extended family.

Activist Linda Nicole Stringfellow always has condoms, emergency contraception, and pregnancy tests in her office in Cleveland, Mississippi. Whenever someone arrives, she also provides basic sexual education.

Ebony Jones became pregnant by rape at 17 and miscarried. She later got pregnant again, but the fetus was not developing correctly. Jones had to continue to term because it was illegal to terminate at her stage. When her son was born, she held him as he was dying for 10 hours.

Shantana Stamps, has a four-month-old son at 16. She lives with her mother and aunts in Anguilla, Mississippi. While she knew that contraception existed, she did not know where to find it or who to ask.

Cathy Dolley delivered her daughter prematurely by emergency cesarean section. Years earlier, she had a miscarriage and had to keep the fetus in her uterus for 21 days because of trap laws on abortion.

Dolley has three children and has been pregnant six times. Her first daughter, T’lana La’Faith Davis, died the day she was born in 2018.

Dolley is a certified nurse. Throughout the whole miscarriage and hospital experience she understood completely what are the risks and what was happening to her body.

Many abortion clinics stopped providing care the moment the Dobbs decision came down as they scrambled to interpret what the ruling meant for their state. The Pink House closed its doors for good on 6 July, and as the summer stretched on, more abortion bans took effect. Sixty-six clinics across 15 states stopped offering abortions in the first 100 days after Roe fell, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research form that supports abortion rights.

Clinics in states where abortion remains legal saw huge increases in patients seeking care, and they tried to expand hours and staffing to meet those needs.

I went home with his birth certificate and an empty box with a black flower on it. – Ebony Jones

Doctors, patients and activists spoke out, drawing attention to the ripple effects that new abortion laws were having not only on those who sought abortions, but also on people experiencing pregnancy complications, miscarriages and on those who used medications that were caught up in the uncertainty around the new legislation. Anti-abortion doctors and advocates, meanwhile, argued that the laws were clear and doctors were at fault for any confusion about when the laws applied.

In August, the new era of abortion restrictions faced its first test at the ballot box when Kansas voters decisively rejected a measure that would have opened the state to future abortion bans. The surprising win for abortion rights supporters served as a symbol of a brewing backlash to the supreme court’s decision, and added fuel to debates within the Republican party about how far it should go with its new ability to restrict abortion.

Senator Lindsay Graham proposed a national 15-week abortion ban in September, but other conservative states faltered as they tried to agree on limits for abortion without the constraints of Roe.

The intensity of these fights increased as the country headed toward the midterm elections, where abortion was suddenly at the forefront of nearly every campaign. Members of Congress held hearings on the topic. Advocates flooded into states where more ballot measures addressed abortion, and where voters were now acutely aware of the power that state and local elected officials have over their lives.

Meanwhile, reproductive justice advocates, who had been warning for years that Roe was not enough to guarantee abortion access, ramped up their plans to help people find care. Some clinics that stopped offering abortions remained open in states with bans to provide other reproductive health services, gender-affirming care and follow-up appointments for people who terminated their pregnancies out of state.

While performing an ultrasound for a patient who was preparing for an abortion, Dr. Cheryl Hamlin saw signs of an ectopic pregnancy, which would make taking abortion pills dangerous for the patient.

Her patient had traveled multiple hours to reach the clinic and needed to return home that night, so Hamlin worked to verify the diagnosis as soon as possible with other specialists.

While some people prefer to take abortion pills on their own, Hamlin believes everyone should have medical support if they desire. Now that many states have outlawed abortion, many people are going without that support.

Kate works at the Hope Clinic for Women in Illinois, where she received an abortion in 2021. After a complicated pregnancy, she was told a future pregnancy would be dangerous but the Catholic hospital where she gave birth refused to tie her tubes.

Kate became pregnant again despite taking birth control. She experienced complications after taking abortion pills and had to have three blood transfusions. The Hope Clinic asked Kate to return to ensure the abortion was safely completed.

Many abortion clinic workers choose these jobs because they have personal experience with the topic or believe strongly in the clinics’ missions.

Grassroots groups known as abortion funds raised money to help people afford abortions and the travel, lodging, childcare and extra costs that come with seeking medical assistance far from home. People like Michelle Colon, founder of Shero in Mississippi, organized volunteers to drive more than 50 women at least 10 hours north to Illinois to obtain abortions. Colon herself drove at least 20 times between the end of June and the fall, sometimes bringing more than one patient in her car and paying for travel costs herself. She is now among the very few individuals left providing such help in Mississippi.

With the country focused on abortion in a way it hadn’t been for years, advocates tried to cut through the stigma around the topic. They held conferences, speakouts and encouraged politicians to talk about the issue on the campaign trail leading up to the November midterm elections.

Angela Michael, an anti-abortion activist and former nurse performs an ultrasound on Ashley in a recreational vehicle outside the Hope Clinic. Michael convinced Ashley not to have an abortion several years ago.

On 8 November 2022, voters delivered a ringing endorsement of abortion rights in key states, establishing new abortion protections in Michigan, California and Vermont, while rejecting efforts to restrict abortion or criminalize providers in Kentucky and Montana. Elsewhere, voters supported governors and other state level candidates who backed abortion rights in places like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Kansas and Arizona.

As the post-Roe reality set in, abortion pills, which have been on the World Health Organization’s list of “essential medicines” for years and now account for more than half of US abortions, proved a key flash point.

Abortion rights activists see the pills, a two-drug regimen also known as medication abortion, as a key way to help people get care privately and take some of the load off brick-and-mortar clinics. Telehealth services like Hey Jane, Choix and Abortion on Demand expanded in states where abortion remains legal. The number of abortions provided by virtual-only telehealth providers increased from an average of 4,025 abortions a month (or 5% of all abortions) before Dobbs to 7,461 a month (9% of all abortions) in the first nine months after the decision, according to the Society of Family Planning’s new WeCount report . For people who couldn’t or didn’t want to use official channels, activists expanded underground networks run by groups like Las Libres and Red Necesito Arbortar that are delivering abortion pills to Americans from as far away as Mexico and India.

Michelle Colon, founder of Shero, an abortion fund in Mississippi, works with other activists to find ways to continue helping women in the south access abortion.

Plan A mobile clinic provides free basic reproductive healthcare and pre- and postnatal checkups for patients without health insurance. The clinic also refers patients to health centers that provide post-abortion checkups.

Valencia Robinson leads Mississippi in Action, a group that does advocacy and education about sexual and reproductive health issues. Robinson started this work after her own emergency c-section years ago.

April Jackson already had two kids when she got pregnant again. She went to a pregnancy center and was convinced not to have an abortion. Her youngest daughter was born with a heart defect that now needs to be constantly monitored.

April is raising her seven children on her own without any substantial support from any organizations or the state of Mississippi, where she is from and currently lives.

As a teenager, Amanda Furdge had two abortions. She never received sex education growing up in Mississippi. She later got married and had a son but escaped back home after her husband became violent. She soon learned she was pregnant again and was misled by a crisis pregnancy center after she went to them for an abortion.

Several years later she married another man, and though she did not want to have more children, she had another baby. After her second husband also became violent, Furdge got a tubal ligation and left her spouse to raise her children on her own.

Those who oppose abortion see pills as enabling a way around their favored laws. While the vast majority of Americans did not want to see Roe overturned and public opinion has only solidified in favor of abortion rights since last summer, the anti-abortion movement does not care if its positions are not widely popular. This year, Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit aiming to force the FDA to take mifepristone, one of the two drugs used for medication abortions, off the market nationwide.

After a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas agreed with the group, the supreme court eventually blocked the restrictions and maintained access for now. But the case is likely to end up back at the supreme court, where it could still upend abortion access in every state.

She asked me to show her a photo of my oldest son. And then she asked ‘what if I kill him? – Amanda Furdge

The 2023 legislative session brought a number of new state abortion bans and restrictions, though some of these have now been blocked by courts. Democratic-leaning states pushed back by allocating funding and passing new protections for abortion seekers and providers within their borders. In other places, conservative lawmakers sought to limit ballot measures related to abortion. A group of patients in Texas who say they were denied medically necessary abortions despite risks to their lives and their fetuses, sued the state seeking to clarify exceptions to its abortion bans and as physicians in other states highlighted similar situations also arguing for more health-based exceptions, lawmakers often proved skeptical and anti-abortion advocates encouraged them to hold strong.

Alejandra had an abortion in 2018. She remembers how lonely she felt during her experience. Now Alejandra provides help to other women in Arizona and talks about her story publicly to fight abortion stigma.

Throughout the spring, abortion funds continued to help people access care. But while many groups in places as diverse as Louisiana, Arizona and Colorado doubled and tripled their fundraising from before Dobbs, they are now warning that funding is lagging as the public’s attention wanes. The New York Abortion Access Fund, which has helped patients from 29 states, Washington DC and six countries access abortions in the last year, says it is on pace to run out of money by October if it does not receive more support.

Over 3,000 abortion pills were donated to Red Necesito Abortar, an activist group in Mexico so that they can be transported across the border for American women to use.

Misa (pseudonym) is an activist from a feminist collective in Matamoros, Mexico. Since the abortion laws have changed in the US, she has crossed the border multiple times to bring abortion pills to Texas.

In Mississippi, health problems continue and people like Colon, one of the few people helping residents in her state find the resources to travel and obtain abortions, says the situation feels almost like Jenga, the children’s game that involves precariously removing wooden blocks from a tower until they collapse. “They’re just pulling away everything,” she says. “There’s only a couple more blocks left. You’ve got these other blocks just kind of teetering.”

We never thought that we would be the ones who would be able to provide abortion access to women in the US. – Veronica Cruz

It’s not clear what will happen when the last block is gone. More lawsuits and legal attacks are coming, OB-GYNs are leaving states with abortion bans, and training for the next generation of medical residents in states with restrictions remains uncertain.

But for now, abortion rights advocates are not giving up.

Colon says she feels like she is fighting back against the new laws every time she gets someone to an appointment to terminate their pregnancy if that’s what they want. “You may have put up all of these hurdles, but we’re still getting folks there,” she says. “We’re basically crawling over fucking glass, we’re climbing mountains, yet we’re still getting people there.

Lola, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who has been living in California for over 20 years, prepares abortion pills provided by a Mexican organization for clandestine distribution around the US.

When Lola had an abortion a few years ago, she was alone. She is now part of a network distributing them to people in the states where abortion has been illegal since more laws started changing in June 2022.

• A year without Roe
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The New York Times

Lens | behind the scenes: picturing fetal remains, lens: photography, video and visual journalism, follow lens:.

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Behind the Scenes: Picturing Fetal Remains

The photographs are graphic and detailed, showing the fingers or toes of aborted fetuses whose entire frames are no bigger than a cellphone. Since the mid-1990s, they have appeared all over the country — carried as posters by protesters, handed out with pamphlets or, in some cases, mounted like billboards on the sides of trucks .

Like many others, I often wondered about the source of these images. Who took the pictures? Where did the fetuses come from?

I had a chance to find some answers while reporting in late September on the death of James Pouillon , the anti-abortion protester who was shot and killed in Owosso, Mich. [See Saturday’s presentation on the subject in The New York Times.]

Mr. Pouillon was holding an anti-abortion sign at the time, with a baby on one side and an abortion on the other. At his memorial service, I met Monica Migliorino Miller, who told me she had a lot to share about the use of abortion imagery.

A theology professor at Madonna University and the director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society , she said she had firsthand experience retrieving fetuses after abortions and photographing them. When we met two days later in her university office, she handed me proof: a series of 4-by-6-inch prints that she shot, which have been turned into portraits by Stephen McGee.

The first image in the pile gave me a clue to the source. It showed a cardboard box with six or seven large, sealed plastic bags with something red inside. There were names on the bags in black ink and, on the box, there was a date written with felt-tip marker: Feb. 27, 1988.

Mrs. Migliorino Miller said this was one of the many boxes filled with fetuses that she, her husband and several others pulled 21 years ago from a loading dock in Northbrook, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. Acting on a tip, between February and September of 1988, she said they retrieved around 4,000 fetuses that had been shipped there from a dozen or so abortion clinics nationwide. (A protracted lawsuit tied to their efforts ended in 2003 .)

Mrs. Migliorino Miller said the boxes filled spare rooms in her apartment and others for nearly a year. “We didn’t feel we could put them in storage,” she said.

In 1988, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, archbishop of Chicago, presided over a funeral for around 2,000 of the fetuses. Activists buried many others.

But for Mrs. Migliorino Miller, a diminutive woman of deliberate mien, there were more discoveries. Last year, she said she found 23 fetuses in trash-hauling bins outside two Michigan abortion clinics, leading to a state investigation of the companies’ removal procedures; in 1987, she said a tip led her to a Chicago alley with dozens of boxed-up fetuses in a trash-hauling bin.

That was when she took her first fetal pictures. She described her initial motivation as journalistic. “We felt it was very important to make a record of the reality of abortion,” she said.

The process was a challenge: the fetuses, hard to handle; the scent of the formaldehyde solution, enough to burn the nose. Shooting could only be done up close. She recalled renting expensive macro lenses to get within millimeters of the fetuses.

She pointed to one of her snapshots showing a tiny hand with visible wrinkles. “In order to get that detail,” she said, “you need to get a camera right on top of that.”

She defended protesters’ use of blown-up imagery — sometimes as large as billboards — as necessary and justified. “In order to see the humanity and beauty of something so small, you have to enlarge it,” she said. “Otherwise, the baby is invisible and dismissed.”

Over time, however, her views on which images are appropriate have evolved. She no longer sees gory pictures showing blood or organs as acceptable. She has tried harder to shoot younger fetuses, because that’s when most abortions take place, and she said she also believes that the most graphic images should not be deliberately directed at children because “they can’t intellectualize what they’re seeing.”

Her pictures from last year reflect the new approach. They are shot with a purple background of fine wrapping paper, without any blood visible.

“I want to show there’s beauty and humanity in the unborn child,” she said. “There should be a sense of pity.”

Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation , said in an interview that most of the images displayed on street corners are problematic because they depict late-term abortions. “Almost 90 percent of abortions take place in first trimester, where the pregnancy bears no resemblance to these photos,” she said. She added that the pictures “are designed to evoke an emotional response to manipulate women not to choose abortion, and to manipulate the public to support banning abortion.”

From within the anti-abortion movement comes the opposite criticism. Some consider Mrs. Migliorino Miller’s effort to inspire compassion a sign of too much concern for the audience. “It’s a nice sentimental argument,” said Flip Benham, director of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America . “What’s important is truth to us; that this is the truth.”

I found Mr. Benham while searching for the history of “Malachi,” perhaps the anti-abortion movement’s most famous photo. [Note: photograph in this pdf document contains a graphic image.] Mr. Benham took my call at a protest in Charlotte, N.C., where he said photos of Malachi had helped save seven babies that day.

A brochure from Operation Save America laid out some of the background on Malachi, which Rhonda Mackey, the activist who found it, named after the last book of the Old Testament because it means “messenger.” The brochure said it was a “baby boy found frozen in a jar with three other children at an abortion mill” in Dallas in 1993.

Mr. Benham told me he was there that day and saw Ms. Mackey take the jar, one of dozens preserved in flip-top freezers. It was another month, Mr. Benham said, before the pictures were taken because he was in jail for a separate retrieval mission.

The brochure leaves this detail out. It says simply, “We brought the jar to Dr. McCarty, a wonderful Ob-Gyn in Dallas, who put the pieces of this baby and the others back together.”

Mr. Benham said a video of that process, not available online, shows Dr. McCarty weeping as he works. But with other fetuses in the jar, I asked, how did you know all the parts in the image belonged together?

Mr. Benham said the fetuses were at different stages of development, and he trusted Dr. McCarty’s judgment. (Dr. McCarty has since died; Mr. Benham said he could recall only the photographer’s first name, Marco, and did not know how to reach him.)

Was there a date on the jar or any way of knowing how long it had been stored?

“No,” Mr. Benham said.

Other questions arose. How did you know for sure that Malachi was not a miscarriage? How did you know the damage to the fetus did not come from simple decomposition, or the month that it was outside the freezer?

Mr. Benham said there was no doubt in his mind that the image captured the truth of abortion because Malachi was found at a clinic dedicated to abortions. He cited the mark by Malachi’s right ear. “You can see that, it’s forceps,” he said.

Mrs. Migliorino Miller, in our interview at her office, had defended the photo of Malachi because she said it emphasized “the humanity” of the fetus. When I later described the picture’s origins, she said she was surprised. Joe Scheidler, a friend and fellow activist who uses some of Mrs. Migliorino Miller’s images on Face the Truth tours, said she has precisely documented each fetus she photographed, by date, location and — with the help of a doctor — gestational age.

Mrs. Migliorino Miller acknowledged that not everyone in the anti-abortion movement was as careful. But with Malachi, she said, “There’s no way you can deny that’s a baby that suffered a trauma.”

For the cause, it works. “You have a whole baby,” she said. “That makes it a very valuable and powerful image.”

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Miss Miller should takes pictures of single mothers who are overburdened with kids with no way to take care of them. She should also take pictures of poor, loitering children all over the world who have been abandoned and are now turning to the drug trade and gangs.

Miss Miller should also take pictures of individual women to show that they are people, not vessels that have no rights and no choice.

Pro-abortion means pro-women.

She, and all of those not in favor of abortion, have a right to their view.

They DO NOT have a right to tell me what to believe, or what to do, especially regarding actions that ARE LEGAL.

I respect your right, but you do not respect mine, and therefore what you are doing, in my mind, is legally and morally repugnant and wrong.

Such anger, hatred, judgment.

They are a fitting picture of the fanatic aware that she is losing the battle, losing control.

What pathetic souls.

She does not truly understand the problems of a single, poor mother, nor does she understand the rights of others to make their own moral decisions, because she has done neither. Nor does she understand the primal nature of conception and carrying a child to term.

If God wanted the babies to live instead of the mothers, he would have had all mothers die in childbirth, or when the mother lost a fetus. Nature does not do this; nature loses the fetus and the mother lives on. Women have been losing fetuses since chased from the caves by men or animals and forced to run. It is the way of the world.

I suggest that she steal soldiers’ bodies, or auto accident victims bodies, and take close-ups of them to publish around the world, stating her horror at the destruction of such beauty. Tell the world how immoral, how terrible, war is, or negligent auto accidents. Someone made direct or indirect decisions about those deaths as well, and they were created entirely by mankind, not nature.

Oh poor, unwed mothers… *sniff sniff*. On the most part, these poor, unwed mothers made their decision that resulted in their pregnancy. They have no one to blame but themselves. Don’t want to get pregnant? Use protection or abstinence.

Its time people took responsibility for their own actions.

Oh wait, thats not the liberal way.

Because rape victims never get pregnant, amirite JC? Or is it that it’s always the woman’s fault if she’s raped?

Conservatives are amoral sociopathic monsters.

Um, JC? Most poor, unwed mothers are in the conservative Republican South.

Just sayin’.

Well JC, they are taking responsibility for their actions. Just not in a way with which you agree.

That said, I find it fine that Ms. Miller takes photos to express her personal beliefs about abortion. I find it reprehensible that she wishes to actively impose those religious beliefs on those that clearly do not share those beliefs.

Plenty of middle and upper class women get abortions too, even though they are more financially equipped to support a child. It’s a matter of convenience, not economy, for many women.

I think the whole point of these pictures is that they are intended to refute the pro-abortion claim that a fetus is not a human being.

Look at the pictures and decide for yourself.

I grew up in the South in the 1950’s and 60’s. Until 1964, segregation was legal in my state of Mississippi. There were those who wanted to make it illegal. And some argued that though it may have been legal, the effect of segregation was not moral.

I remember hearing sometimes vitriolic talk about those who would “impose their laws and morals” on our native state. For me, the same anger and critical tone rings in the accusals against those in pro-life society who oppose abortion on moral grounds, although it surely is legal.

Of course, even in the history of America, moreover the history of the world, what has been legal has not always been moral. Because governments change, laws change. But not moral laws.

I question the NYT’s reasons for publishing this and the other multimedia slideshow on anti-abortion protesters at such a critical time in the health care debate, when women’s reproductive healthcare is in serious jeopardy.

Reproductive healthcare is more than abortion, and anti-abortion attacks on agencies like Planned Parenthood threaten any and all attempts by women to responsibly conceive.

As Nick Kristof has so eloquently written in this paper, improving the lives of women benefits ALL humankind. If women aren’t doing well, their children aren’t either..

If the NYT wants to give a full perspective on the right to life, please give us more photographs of crack babies, abused and murdered children, malnourished children, children orphaned by AIDS and war. You can begin right here in our own country, the land of “plenty”.

Articles like this are good to see because it supports people that believe that abortion has murdered 50,000,000 babies. Look at that number for a minute 50,000,000 look at the zero’s and put a human being in that place. I have NEVER seen an article like this in newprint and it is great to see the Pro Life side of the story instead of the ProAbortion side all of the time. You can see the caring side that these awesome people have for the unborn.

Even though the pictures are difficult to look at this is what an abortion really is and these are real babies. Let the truth be told!!! How any society can kill their own is beyond me.

We don’t use graphic images of dead soldiers to protest the war, recognizing the breach in dignity that such photos would present both bearer and viewer. I am disturbed by the term “pro-abortion” that is being used in this discussion. Though I support a woman’s right to choose, I’m certainly not in favor of abortion, as the “pro” term implies. Indeed I too wish for a world in which none must occur. I just don’t think jailing doctors and women would help.

And if it’s true that women who seek abortions are as immoral, selfish, criminal, murderous, and sinful as the religious right claims, isn’t it better that they don’t have children?

I am a classic, left-clinging liberal in all ways but the abortion issue. I took a friend to have an abortion many years ago and in that clinic my views immediately changed from “pro choice” to anti-abortion. Although these photos are horrific they do speak a truth, a truth that so many pro-choice types refuse to admit. Abortion is far different than birth control, yet that is how pro choice types like to think of it.

I applaud the NY Times for being brave enough to include this piece.

You don’t have to be on the religious right to be against abortion. I’m glad to see pictures that remind us that these are human beings that we’re talking about. Since when do we get to decide when another human being should live or die? I reckon that the children of the overburdened single mother are still glad that they’re alive.

I have to congratulate New York TImes for the courage to publish this article and also allowing the pictures of those babies (so called fetuses) to be shown. This is moral courage. Those little souls are crying blood. We do not have any right to kill babies for the “comfort, rights, future” of some women. The choice should be made before getting pregnant! The end does not justify the means. It is obvious that a baby being eliminated. Just think, that baby could be a future teacher, lawyer, doctor, priest, father or mother. A whole generation of that person is wipe out by such heinous act of abortion. We should not bury out head in the sand.

89% of abortions occur in the first trimester. The earliest abortion photo here is “14 to 16 weeks.” (I’ve often noticed anti-abortion writers cite gestation from fertilization rather than from the last period as doctors do which leads to the idea that the fetus is younger than it actually is.) Let’s assume 16 weeks. Only 4.6% of abortions occur at 16 weeks or later. Guess what? The photos of most abortions would be much less compelling than these graphic images. In fact, more than 60% of abortions take place <9 weeks after the last period.

When a young woman, a child of 15 has made a mistake and is carrying a child that either she, nor her parent wish for it is not because she has intended in her mind to sin. It is not a sin when a person is uneducated about the outcomes of sexual intercourse. Instead of trying and burning these images in people’s mind and categorizing people as pro and anti, do gooders and sinners, these organizations should take part in educating the young. I have been to an abortion clinic with a friend, and believe me-she did not want to be there. Abortions will happen, again and again, until people learn of the outcomes, and shock therapy-is not the way. Give away condoms and show the youth how to use them-don’t judge someone who was too young and uneducated to know better. Nowadays, there are many miracles-an aborted fetus can be used to save lives in stem cell research-it would be much more productive to save a life than to put on display a life parished.

Jennifer and all those who consider abortion is a legitimate choice (for themselves or for others),

a baby’s heart is beating after 21 days. That’s 3 weeks old. Babies are recognisable as babies at 9 weeks old. Even if they weren’t and they looked like frogs, would it be OK to kill them just because they weren’t recognisable as human babies? Is that the kind of criteria we should use? We can find all the excuses in the world to have an abortion. NO-ONE is saying having a baby without money or a husband is easy. My sister did it and it is incredibly tough.

The people who are against abortion are often, like me, people who have had one and know how AWFUL it is first hand; physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically. You have to pretend to yourself that what you have done is not killing at all, but a reasonable thing to have done in the circumstances. That state of being can’t last for long without negative consequences – but as a society we don’t want to know about how abortion affects the women we claim to support with the right to choose – because that would threaten our sense of choice, and unfortunately, choice is worth more than human life in our society.

We who are pro-lifers are not unfeeling bigots. We are people who care deeply. And if you want to find the people who are providing the most care for women who have had their baby in spite of the circumstances OR who HAVE HAD AN ABORTION, look beyond any false stereotypes you may have and find out who they really are. Yes, they are pro life people who care about the life of the baby AND the life of the woman. Thank God they were there for me. I would not be here otherwise.

I was a med student and decided to go ahead and witness a termination (listed simply as a D&C on the OR schedule). Both med students and residents were given the option to opt-out, but I figured, “I’m pro-choice, so I should see exactly what it is.

It was a girl in her early 20s and her boyfriend was with her. I don’t remember exactly how many weeks along she was, but I remember looking at the “products of conception” afterwards and being surprised that there were definite recognizable parts. The head was about the size of a Barbie doll’s head. Honestly, I found it rather disturbing. I think the pictures are pretty accurate, based on what I saw.

I’m still pro-choice, but I do feel that it’s a very, very grave decision.

May the pictures of these dead babies haunt our dreams.

A lot of these people don’t care about humans, especially children and their mothers, who are already alive and often suffering.

They only care about fetuses, probably because helping poor children and single mothers requires actual work. Anybody can stand outside a clinic for weeks on end and wave a bunch of signs. But how many of them are willing to take in foster kids or become social workers or spend weeks in an inner city school tutoring instead?

As a woman who had an abortion 20 years ago, it is hard to look at these pictures, however they do not change my opinion that I made the best decision for me at the time in having my abortion. It wasn’t the right decision or the wrong decision, but the best decision for me at that time in my life. i regret being in the situation that led to my abortion, but I am glad I had the choice to control what went on in my own body. I will live with that decision and the sadness that accompanied it, but I would never want to restrict a woman from having the power of choice.

Can’t beieve I am seeing this in the NYT!

Thank you. And DR. M- I thank you for bravely and compassionately photographing these children.

Showcase: Mitch Epstein’s Power

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Civil Rights

Pre-Roe, They Risked Their Lives to Control Their Destinies

Women reflect on the illegal abortion they received before the Supreme Court's 1973 decision—and their fears for the future.

by Paula Panich and Ilana Panich-Linsman

July 1, 2022, 5:45 PM, CDT

A version of this story ran in the July / August 2022 issue.

The women whom my daughter, photojournalist Ilana Panich-Linsman, photographed in 2021 could be anyone—your neighbor, college professor, doctor, or mother.

They are women who sought, with great difficulty, to terminate pregnancies as young women between 1958 and early 1973, when abortion was mostly illegal in the United States. Nine of these procedures took place in the U.S. and one in Nogales, Mexico. They were high school girls or young college students; two married right out of high school.  

Almost all the women are now mothers and grandmothers. Among them are businesswomen, an immigration lawyer, a retired physician, a former Peace Corps volunteer, a professor and leader in the reproductive justice movement, and a writer and filmmaker. 

Most of the women in this series understood a half-century ago that they would risk their lives with an illegal medical procedure. (Two, through unusual circumstances, had legal abortions.) Almost all reported feeling lasting shame. Not guilt, because all were grateful to be able to shape their future lives, but shame is a different matter. Half a century ago, shame was endemic to the times. To be a young woman who had sex was shameful. To be a young woman who had to solve the problem of an unwanted pregancy was shameful. To live with the fear that an abortion would be revealed to parents was shameful. And to break the law was shameful. 

Yet they understand now that their decisions to terminate their pregnancies were acts of self-determination. They chose to participate in this project because, as one participant, Arla, said, “I wouldn’t want anyone to go through what I did.” 

In 2019, I suggested to Ilana that she consider documenting women who had pre- Roe abortions. Most of us are now in our late 60s, 70s, and 80s. I say “us” because I am one of these women.

Like many in this country, I was confident then, in 2019, that the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade , which affirmed the fundamental right to a woman’s bodily self-determination and privacy, was settled law.

By late 2021, Roe was far less secure due to a different composition of the Supreme Court. It was time for women who underwent illegal abortions to speak. 

My daughter Ilana learned through her interviews that these women had been desperate to obtain this forbidden health care. Young and naïve, they often believed what they were told: So-and-so had been trained by a doctor or nurse or had “some sort of medical training.” A few, in fact, were seen by licensed doctors. 

Wanda got into a car with an unknown man in Mexico to be driven to a clinic; more than one woman followed strangers upstairs to an apartment or motel room. For Linda, the apartment was above a restaurant in New Orleans; the restaurateur was the abortion provider. 

In 1958, when Rita was a pregnant high school student, she had an older boyfriend. Any talk about sex then was taboo, even among friends. “It was sinful; it was shameful; and it was all women’s fault,” she said. The boyfriend drove her from one state to another where they had heard about abortion providers, but she was rejected because of her advanced pregnancy. At a bar in Lexington, Kentucky, the bartender directed them to a woman known to perform abortions. They went to an apartment in the middle of the night. Rita feared the instruments weren’t sterile. She survived; she expelled the fetus and did not hemorrhage or become infected. Money to pay for an abortion and to travel to procure the procedure was an issue for everyone in Ilana’s story.  Rita paid the required $200 ($2,000 today) with money saved from a summer job. 

“When I was a 19-year-old pregnant college sophomore … I wasn’t thinking about the technicalities of the legalized oppression of women. I was thinking, instead, about dying.”

Another participant, Sandra, met a man in a motel. She paid him $500 to insert a catheter with what was likely soap into her uterus. She almost died of sepsis a couple of weeks later. She was hospitalized and given a D&C (dilation and curettage), the standard surgical abortion procedure. She would not admit to doctors what had happened. “I would rather die than tell,” she said, given the social stigma and possible arrest.

So-called “therapeutic” abortions, permitted to protect the mother’s wellbeing, were available legally by hospital committee in San Francisco in 1960. In order to secure the procedure, Kat had to lie to a psychiatrist, telling her that she would either kill herself or the baby if she were denied the abortion. She spoke out of desperation, choking on the words. The procedure cost $500, and her married boyfriend skipped out rather than contribute. Her father sent the money to the hospital. Her roommate almost died from a perforated uterus due to a botched abortion by a licensed medical doctor.

Elizabeth, a student from Texas in her final year of medical school in Mexico, did not want to have an illegal abortion there. She had seen the horrific results in her own hospital. She returned to Texas to seek a safer abortion. She hemorrhaged after an incomplete procedure. Her life was saved by hospital colleagues when she returned to Mexico. 

Two generations and more than a half-century later, contraception is widely available, and the landscape of female self-determination for many women, but not all, has changed. 

Half of pregnancy terminations in this country are now medication abortions. Abortion pills are available through the internet, often through telemedicine (though not in all states). The pills can be taken up to 10 weeks’ gestation. After that, a surgical procedure is required. People disadvantaged by systemic racism and economic insecurity have always struggled to access contraception and abortion, legal or not.

The average woman now seeking an abortion is most often a low-income, single mother in her mid-20s.

Roe could be overturned by the Supreme Court this summer, and the power to regulate abortions will then rest solely with the states. According to some observers, it is possible that, without Roe , between 24 and 26 states will not allow pregnant people the right to autonomy over their own bodies.  

Thirteen states, including Texas, stand ready with “trigger laws” to make abortion immediately illegal with the overturning of Roe . Texas and Oklahoma have passed punitive laws against anyone who helps bring about an abortion. What’s more, in the 49 years since Roe , many states have already passed onerous laws restricting health care for women.

I can say from my own experience that, when I was a 19-year-old pregnant college sophomore, humiliated every morning by vomiting in my dorm’s communal bathroom, I wasn’t thinking about the technicalities of the legalized oppression of women.

I was thinking, instead, about dying.

It was 1967. I endured the ministrations of an abusive doctor near my campus, known to all as “Quack.” He had the number of the abortion clinic in Nogales, Mexico. 

My boyfriend at the time borrowed the money for the procedure, drove me there, and, fortunately, back. 

On the table at the clinic, before sucking in ether, the man who may have been a doctor asked me if I was married. In a small, shamed voice I said, “No.” It was the right answer.

Kat Tatlock

My abortion was in 1960.

I was the good girl in my family. But then I had to face the music. I had to have this abortion in order to have a life. Call it selfish; but certainly not criminal. Every decision is a tough decision. And every decision you make about whether to have an abortion isn’t an easy one. You have to think about all the consequences, what you are going to have to live with.

What about my children? What about my grandchildren? I want my grandchildren to know what it was like before we had Roe v. Wade , what risks were taken, and what kind of money was involved.

My abortion was in 1968.

I did not tell my husband because his parents were real religious, and my husband and I did not have that close of a relationship. I can remember being half-dragged up the stairs. I think he wanted me to miscarry. I just didn’t feel like I could talk to him about something as secretive as an abortion.

I may have told a dozen people before now. I think carrying a secret damaged me. I’ve just always felt bad that I didn’t have the wherewithal to do the right thing [telling doctors she had been poisoned by a botched abortion] to speak for my own health, but more importantly, to speak for others.

Elizabeth Ramirez Watson

My abortion was in 1973.

What I have resented for so long is that I felt the laws in Mexico and the U.S. were totally unfair to women. But if we have to go through psychological, emotional, and even religious things and all that—OK. Just let us be.

The psychological trauma was great. I never imagined the load that an abortion [could] leave in a woman. And at the time, I cried so much for what I put my body through.

Because of all I went through, I can only imagine what hundreds and thousands of women will go through, especially with what is happening here in Texas. I just feel that it is not fair.

Wanda Kilborn

My abortion was in 1969.

In all the years since, I’ve never told anyone this story. I want to talk about it now because more than anything, I see young women having [the potential] of going through illegal abortions again. That would be stepping back into the Dark Ages.

Arla Ralston

My abortion was in 1970.

I was counseled by a clergyman and sent to Chicago. I never told my parents [about the pregnancy] but my mother figured it out, and I told her what I was going to do. She started crying and told me of the child she had given up for adoption when she was in her 20s. She had to go to a home for unwed mothers, and that she was treated very badly there.

My abortion was in 1958

You didn’t talk about contraceptives, it was before the pill; in my culture, no one acknowledged that girls were having sex, and I could just deny and segment that reality from other parts of my life. I’m telling this story because so many girls from that era did not survive. Especially women who had less money; women of color.

Jean Emma Francis

I knew I couldn’t have another child. We were struggling financially. I had been to technical training school in Cleveland in 1962 and I met a guy there [who said] he was trained by doctors in Orlando to do abortions. He was a lab technician. 

The first two catheters [he inserted] did not work, so I went back and the third one did work. He told me that if my temperature went up, to wait until it was 103, and then [I should] go to the emergency and they would think I had a miscarriage. 

I got a big infection. I went to the hospital and they gave me a D&C [dilation and curettage] and antibiotics. 

I don’t think I was necessarily scared because I trusted I would be okay. I was young and naïve, I never thought about the legality of it. I just knew I could not go full term with this pregnancy. 

I feel lucky and grateful. If Roe is overturned I know that all women won’t be as lucky as I was and that there will be many women who will die from going to backroom abortionists. White men should not be telling me or any woman what to do with my body.

I was 18 or 19, and pregnant from an older man. I found out later he was married. I didn’t even know his real name because he had switched his name. 

He told me he was married when I told him I was pregnant. He knew someone [who was the restaurant owner] and paid for the procedure. 

I realize how lucky I was. I know stories of women whose abortion providers were not gentlemen—they expected sex from them . . . or it was someone poking instruments up them. These women had consequences for the rest of their lives. 

I have been an abortion clinic escort, and have educated others about people with disabilities, the elderly, or formerly incarcerated people. I have affected other people’s lives. I’m proud of what I have done. I just don’t know how the other life [without the abortion] could have ended up as well as this one did. 

Women shouldn’t be pushed into back alleys and face whatever unknowns go along with that.

Loretta Ross

I was fortunate enough to have been in Washington DC as a young first-year student at Howard University. The summer before, the City Council of D.C. legalized abortion. I found myself with an unintentional pregnancy at the age of 16.  My law school boyfriend was happy to pay for it. 

[She was already a mother of a son her mother was raising. He had been born when she was 15 as a result of an incestuous rape.]

My mother was born in 1922, and was a very old-school Southern evangelical Christian woman, who refused to sign the permission slip [for the abortion…Her older sister managed to sign her mother’s name.]

If there is anything I would caution people to keep in mind is that you can’t take your human rights for granted, because there is always someone trying to take them away from you. I never thought that it would be harder right now to resist being sexually violated, to obtain an abortion, to go up against the system now than it was 53 years ago. It should not be harder. It should be easier.

Thinking back to those days, it’s very scary, and it’s sad and painful. I was in love with my boyfriend; I know that he wasn’t as in love with me as I was with him. I ended up getting pregnant. I was in high school. I could not imagine myself having a baby, or keeping a baby. My parents would have been very upset, angry, and embarrassed.

I was [thinking] well, I can take care of this, I can take care of myself, I don’t need a parent to help me. But looking back, I realize that I couldn’t take care of myself with everything.

The boyfriend didn’t have money; he was still in high school too. He was about a year or so older, and not interested in getting married or keeping a baby either. 

I had an older friend who was in the military. I knew he would have $350 which was how much I needed. The boyfriend did find somebody to do it, and he told me that she was a nurse or something.

I don’t want us to go back to the days when abortion was illegal, and when people had to have back-alley abortions. I want women to be able to have safe and legal abortions, and so that’s why I’m willing to talk about it. 

We’re at this point in our history, in the country, where some people think they need to take this right to a safe and legal abortion away from us. And I feel like I have to do what I can. I can’t do a lot, but I can talk about how it was before.  

I think that African Americans, people who are darker, and women, are the most discriminated [against] people on this planet. I’m really interested in women, and the safety of women, and the dignity of women, and so I don’t think that we should have to sneak around to do things. I don’t think that abortion should be a form of birth control, but I think it should be available if people need it. I was a teenager, I was basically a child myself, and children make mistakes.

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What Abortion Actually Looks Like

Two doulas set out to demystify the process by documenting their clients’ experiences..

The visual language of abortion is still often defined by coat hangers and graphic close-ups of fetal remains, tropes that don’t reflect the reality of contemporary abortion care. Over half of abortions in the United States are administered medically, with pills that can be taken from the comfort of home. As full-spectrum doulas — who support all outcomes of pregnancy, including abortion — Heather and Sarah noticed that these misperceptions created anxiety and confusion for the people they supported. Determined to show the reality of the experience, Heather and Sarah began a project to photograph their clients as they have their abortions, while providing doula support in the process. Since 2019, the two have documented seven abortions around the country, collecting the images in zines that they distribute through their website.

Heather: In 2019, shortly after Sarah and I met at a training event, I got unexpectedly pregnant. My partner and I knew right away that we wanted to have an abortion. Even though I was training as a full-spectrum doula, I wasn’t prepared for my abortion. It would have helped me so much to actually see what people actually go through. I was hit with how similar having an abortion is to giving birth to a live baby. I felt like I was having contractions just like I did giving birth. I had my abortion in a hotel room with Sarah and another friend, who was also a doula. Sarah took pictures with her cell phone, which was really powerful to me, because as a birth photographer, I know how amazing it is to have images of those experiences in your life to not only process, but to share your story.

After my abortion, Sarah and I knew that we wanted to do something together that showed what abortion actually looks like. We wanted to not only destigmatize it, but to demystify it and let people know what they could expect for their abortion, so we founded the Abortion Project.

Sarah: We get a lot of referrals from people who I have supported in the past and from local abortion funds. Usually when people find out they’re unexpectedly pregnant, they kind of panic and don’t know what to do. When people think about accessing abortion, they think it’s just a quick trip to a clinic, but it’s so much more. As full-spectrum doulas, we’re not just there for emotional and physical support, but really helping people with navigating the system itself, connecting them with clinics and abortion funds. When you’re stressed out, it’s so hard to make decisions, and it’s really important to have someone by your side who has experience to walk you through your options.

After someone has made their clinic appointment, we start talking about a care plan. We do our best to prepare them beforehand, making sure that they have enough food in their house or helping them plan child care if needed. Whether it’s a live birth, abortion, or a miscarriage, we’re asking a lot of the same questions. Every experience is so incredibly individual, and there’s so many different feelings that somebody can have. Someone who is having a miscarriage could feel relief, or someone who’s having an abortion could be feeling an incredible sadness.

Heather: There is nuance to following the language each person uses, whether they’re calling the pregnancy a baby or “the pregnancy” or by a name. There is a process to feeling out each person that isn’t necessarily asking questions, but taking their lead and following. For an abortion specifically, we’ll ask who they want to be present, what they want to call the pregnancy, and what they want to do before and after the abortion, ritual-wise. We also ask how they manage stress and pain in their day-to-day life, because that can be really telling of how they’re going to want to be cared for during their abortion experience.

Heather: Sarah takes the lead doula role while I am photographing a lot during the experiences, but I try to jump in as much as I can. It’s really amazing working with two doulas because we pick up on things the other may have missed.

Sarah:  Mifepristone, the medication that ends the pregnancy, is given in the clinic. In some states, they have to physically watch you take it. You’re sent home with misoprostol to take later, which expels the pregnancy, and that’s what we are supporting and documenting.

Heather:  Misoprostol is taken by dissolving the pills in your cheek or under your tongue so that you hopefully don’t get as many side effects, like diarrhea and nausea, as you would from swallowing it. That way it’s absorbed directly into the bloodstream, bypassing the stomach. 

Heather:  It takes 20 to 30 minutes for the medication to dissolve. Here, a participant checks the progress of the four misoprostol pills dissolving under her tongue.

Heather: People misunderstand the need for medical abortions. They think that they’re all dire situations and that’s not the case. Sometimes it’s just an accidental pregnancy, or the birth control failed. 

Maybe it’s just bad timing. Those are all valid reasons to end a pregnancy.

Heather: We spend a lot of time in the beginning getting to know the participants. We’ve gardened and watched TV shows with them, waiting for the medication to take effect. This participant read our tarot while using a TENS unit, which sends electrical signals through the body, to distract from the pain.

Heather:  People gloss over the fact that a lot of people having abortions are parents already. Not everyone is able to find child care during their abortion. Even though this participant was struggling with nausea and cramping, she was incredibly present with her daughter, who comforted her throughout the day.

Heather:  Sometimes when we’re with people and they take the medication, things don’t start right away. We try to stay at least 12 hours, but sometimes they just want to go to bed. If they start bleeding a couple days later, we can’t always make it back, so we support them virtually, which happened with this participant.

Heather:  With doula training, they’ll tell you the mechanics of something, but they won’t dive into the emotional complexities. This woman dropped to her knees in shock when her pregnancy was expelled. She began praying and asking us for forgiveness for her emotional state while Sarah comforted her.

Sarah:  When you are giving birth, there is a rhythm to the contractions, but when you take this medication for an abortion, it’s essentially like one long contraction. Instead of getting breaks in between, it’s one consistent, really uncomfortable experience until it finally moves through your cervix.

Miscarriage and abortion are essentially identical — it’s one physiological process.

Heather:  There can be a lot of bleeding, which sometimes scares people. But it’s normal. It’s heavier than a period, but it’s normal for an abortion.

Heather: There is a huge variation of normal for medical abortions, just like birth. A few hours after this participant had taken the medication, she was cramping a lot, but not bleeding. We suggested she take a bath to help relieve the pain.

Sarah:  After the bath, this client was walking to her closet when the pregnancy fell out of her body unexpectedly. She lost a blood clot, and then the pregnancy. She terminated at eight weeks.

Heather:  Sometimes there are complications. A few days after her medical abortion, this participant had a fever and some pain, so we knew that the abortion probably wasn’t complete.

Her health-care provider sent her to the hospital, and I went with her for support. She had to have a dilation and curettage procedure to make sure that the pregnancy was removed fully.

Sarah: It’s not uncommon to hold a ceremony for the pregnancy after the abortion is finished. This participant chose to bury the pregnancy in a pot of wildflowers that her kids had sprouted and cared for, watering them every day.

Heather:  We are still figuring out how to navigate a post- Roe world. Safety is the most important, for us as a nonprofit, but also for our participants. We want to be able to spread these stories as far and wide as we can, but it’s scary when you come up against opposition.

If anything, it ignites that fire under us to keep going.

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Photo essay: The first three days without Roe v. Wade

The reactions of north texans to the u.s. supreme court's decision to overturn roe v. wade, a landmark abortion rights decision, ranged from rage to jubilation. pro-choice protesters took to the streets. anti-abortion advocates and churchgoers celebrated as anti-abortion preachers praised the supreme court's decision. kera news photographer azul sordo captured the moments..

10 Powerful Photos That Capture The Horrors Of Illegal Abortions

"Nothing is ever black or white."

BuzzFeed News Photo Essay Editor

Laia Abril is a multiplatform artist whose work examines the deeply personal and, at times, controversial topics of womanhood and reproductive rights. For Abril, bringing to light stories that are often hidden or misunderstood is about shifting the narrative toward an open conversation on the experiences of women around the world and throughout history.

Her series On Abortion uses photography and text to share true stories on how women have historically received abortions without access to legal and safe methods. The work is part of a larger body of work called A History of Misogyny. BuzzFeed News spoke with Laia Abril on her research and her upcoming book, On Abortion: And the Repercussions of Lack of Access .

Warning: Some of the images and text portray crude, ineffective, illegal, and dangerous methods of preventing or terminating pregnancies. These methods may be potentially life threatening and can cause pain, permanent injury, hemorrhage, and death. For information about safe abortions, consult a health care provider or check out this information from the World Health Organization.

Hippocratic Betrayal

In February 2015, a 19-year-old pregnant woman ingested abortive pills in São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil. She started feeling abdominal pains, so her aunt took her to hospital. After she was treated, her doctor called the police, saying he would autopsy the fetus if she did not confess to trying to abort. She was handcuffed to her hospital bed and freed only after paying a 250 euro bail.

Denunciation by doctors is not uncommon in Brazil, Peru, or El Salvador. Women who are reported for attempting abortion can be detained in hospitals for weeks or months. Many doctors claim they are legally required to notify authorities when they suspect an abortion, in contradiction of professional codes of doctor-patient confidentiality.

This project aims to show the repercussions of the lack of access to abortion in the world. By "lack of access," I do not simply mean a matter of laws, but also free and safe access that is free of judgment. When all these issues are not in order, more than 47,000 women die every year and thousands remain with physical and/or emotional consequences. Many others are arrested, tried, prosecuted, and deprived of freedom, which also includes being forced to motherhood. The images cannot be separated from their texts; their stories help to create a conceptual map that will shed light on these so misunderstood and forgotten stories.

Though the tone of the images tends to be quite sober, the stories are brutal. What happens cannot be masked, but it is also invisible, uncomfortable, and often dangerous to show for the victims. However, it is extremely important for me that people know what is happening. To see , somehow, what is happening and to know what the repercussions for denying these rights are. There are direct repercussions in the lives of thousands of people.

Producing this body has been an exercise of deep personal learning for me. I've faced ethical questions about life that I had never considered. Much of my practice is based on people opening doors into their darkest place, and me relying on my own empathy and predisposition not to judge. However, I've learned that even in believing that you are free of judgment, you are never completely free. This has been a deep reflection about the purest questions of the human being — life, death, and the right to decide. Nothing is ever black or white.

Knitting Needle Procedure

A three-dimensional cross-section of the body, showing a procedure performed by nonprofessionals using objects not intended for the purpose. In places where abortions are illegal, pregnant women tend to ignore their condition for as long as possible, thereby wasting valuable time. Illegal abortions are, on average, performed at some point in the second trimester. At that point, an instrument must be inserted through the cervix to puncture the amniotic sac. This induces labor, and can result in the embryo's expulsion. Due to the lack of alternatives, women forced to apply this dangerous method for termination face serious physical injury or even death.

Boiling Baths, Tooth, and Superstition

Taking a scalding bath seems to be a widespread method that has persisted for generations. One Sanskrit text from the 8th century recommends squatting over a boiling pot of onions, a technique also used by Jewish women in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the early 1900s. As late as 1870, some abortionists would pull out patients' teeth without anesthetic because the pain and shock was thought to induce miscarriage. Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79), Dioscorides (AD 40–90), and Pseudo-Galen (AD 129–216) all mention more “superstitious” means of abortion, such as eating the egg of a crow, being bitten by a dog, or crossing the menstrual blood of another woman.

Fish Bladder Condom

The earliest prophylactics were typically made from catfish and sturgeon bladders and used until the 19th century. Cleaned, split, and dried lamb intestines were also popular. Since neither material is very elastic, such early condoms had to be secured to the penis with a ribbon. They were also expensive. After each use, the condoms were washed, carefully dried, and rubbed with oil to prevent cracking.

Crossing International Borders

On Jan. 2, 2015, I traveled to Slovakia to have an abortion. I was too scared to take DIY abortion pills alone. What if something went wrong? So I decided to get a surgical abortion in a clinic abroad. I felt upset about borrowing money for the procedure, and lonely and frustrated because I couldn’t tell anyone what was happening. The hardest part was facing my boyfriend, who opposes abortion. All the same, I felt stronger and more mature afterwards." — Marta, 29, Poland

Abortion is legal in nearly all EU countries, except Poland, Ireland, and Malta. In Poland, abortion is illegal except in cases of sexual assault, serious fetal deformation, or threat to the mother’s life. The official number of abortions performed in this country with 38 million inhabitants is only about 750 per year. According to Dutch abortion rights organization Women on Waves, the real number is closer to 240,000.

In November 2015, 9-year-old Inocencia gave birth to a baby boy in Nicaragua. He was the son of her own biological father, who had raped Inocencia repeatedly from the age of 7. Many countries, including Paraguay, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, Somalia, Congo, Egypt, Iran, and Lebanon, do not consider rape a legitimate reason to abort and permit abortion only when the mother’s life is at risk. Stricter still, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Malta, and the Vatican are the five nations in the world where abortion is prohibited under any circumstance.

Illegal Instrument Kit

In places where abortion is illegal, certain medical instruments can be a giveaway. For this reason, specific supplies have rarely been developed or sold for this procedure. Instead, doctors, backstreet abortionists, and pregnant women turn to common household tools: knitting needles, wire clothes hangers, urinary catheters, and a wide variety of other objects long enough to reach into the uterus.

Ancient Herbs and Oral Solutions

The infusion of local plants ruda and chipilin are used by Salvadorean women to abort during the first trimester. There has been an endless list of oral drugs thought to induce miscarriage, since before the time of Hippocrates. A few examples include: clover mixed with white wine, squirting cucumber, stinking iris, slippery elm, brewer’s yeast, melon, wild carrot, aloe, papaya, crushed ants, camel hair, lead, belladonna, quinine, and pomegranate; alternatively, self-starvation.

Wood and Plastic Rods

Early termination of pregnancy is forbidden in nearly every country in Africa due to the restrictive laws of former colonial rule. For this reason, abortions are either carried out by lay abortionists or by women who are left to their own devices. To this end, the amniotic sac is pierced between the fourth and fifth month of pregnancy. The ensuing discharge of amniotic fluid forces the birth of a dead embryo within two to three days. Sharp objects are used in the process, such as branches or long thorns. Piercing the amniotic sac often leads to complications, such as heavy bleeding and/or life-threatening infections. With luck, women are able to arrive at a hospital in time to take care of the situation.

Life Support Machine

On Nov. 27, 2014, an Irish woman in her twenties was admitted to the hospital with headaches and nausea. Two days later, the mother of two suffered a fall and was later found unresponsive. On Dec. 9, she was declared clinically brain dead. She was 15 weeks pregnant at the time and was placed on life support against her family’s wishes. On Dec. 26, the Irish High Court ruled that the life-support machine could be turned off after hearing that her fetus had little chance of surviving.

In Ireland, abortion is illegal unless it occurs as the result of a medical intervention performed to save the life of the mother. Under the 1983 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution, an unborn child has the same rights as its mother.

On Abortion: And the Repercussions of Lack of Access is available for preorder in the US here and available for European purchase here . To see more work by Laia Abril, visit her website at laiaabril.com .

A Safe Haven for Late Abortions

At a clinic in Maryland, desperate patients arrive from all over the country to terminate their pregnancies.

For several years, Morgan Nuzzo, a nurse-midwife, and her friend and colleague Diane Horvath, an ob-gyn, talked about opening a clinic that would provide abortions in all trimesters of pregnancy. In May, 2022, the draft opinion of the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade was leaked, infusing their plan with fresh urgency. The women had launched a GoFundMe campaign earlier that spring, noting that stand-alone clinics made up the majority of providers offering abortion after fifteen weeks, and that many of these had closed in recent years. Within weeks, Nuzzo and Horvath had raised more than a hundred thousand dollars; that summer, they started training employees for the new clinic, Partners in Abortion Care, in College Park, Maryland. They saw their first patient that October, and by the end of 2023 they had treated nearly five hundred. The youngest was eleven years old, the oldest fifty-three.

A woman waits for the third and final day of her late-abortion process. Diane Horvath, an ob-gyn who co-founded the clinic, says that later abortions require more time because “the cervix has to open further and be softer.” She adds, “Beyond twenty-six weeks, patients have an induction abortion, which is a little more like going into labor.”

For nearly a year, the photographer Maggie Shannon visited the clinic regularly with her Canon R5 camera. The clinic’s staff allowed Shannon in because they wanted to help lift some of the secrecy that surrounds later abortions. “Even within our own community” of reproductive-medicine practitioners, Nuzzo said, “later abortion is still kind of stigmatized.” (Exact numbers are hard to come by, but only about a dozen clinics in the country provide abortions after twenty-four weeks; Partners in Abortion Care offers them up to thirty-four weeks.) In the end, Nuzzo and Horvath were astonished by how often patients agreed to be photographed, albeit with their faces concealed. Many of them wanted others to understand how the obstacles placed in the way of abortion care had pushed their procedures later and later.

Charlotte Moore, a patient-care technician, and Benedict Landgren, an ob-gyn, perform a uterine aspiration, in which suction is used to remove the fetus, placenta, or other membrane tissue. Landgren, who lives in Colorado, travels to Maryland every month or two to work at Partners in Abortion Care. “There are more clinicians than people think who are willing and able to do late-abortion care,” Landgren says. “The big barrier is that there aren’t enough clinics.”

A patient’s support person sits in the waiting room. Morgan Nuzzo, a nurse-midwife and the clinic’s co-founder, recalls that a recent patient, who was “here because of a fetal anomaly,” was accompanied by both her father and her partner’s father. “The two dads were doing that dad-in-the-hospital thing, standing and pacing. I told them, ‘I’m so sorry for your family’s loss.’ ”

Staffers use a “pregnancy wheel” to help determine how far along a patient is. Every week, potential clients have to be turned away because their pregnancies have advanced beyond the clinic’s cutoff of thirty-four weeks. “Turning people away is the worst part of our entire jobs,” Nuzzo says.

On a patient’s first day of care, a bandage is applied after an injection has been given to stop the fetal heartbeat. “We induce demise,” Horvath, the ob-gyn, says. “This idea that people are delivering live fetuses—it just does not happen.”

Abortions in the second or third trimester are rare—the vast majority of abortions in the United States are performed in the first thirteen weeks of pregnancy—and when they occur the circumstances tend to be desperate. Horvath told me, “We know that when people decide they need an abortion they want to have it as soon as possible. Nobody is hanging out until they get to twenty or thirty weeks, saying, ‘Oh, I think maybe I’ll have my abortion now.’ ” A common scenario, she said, went like this: “You’re in, say, Texas—you’re pregnant and you need an abortion. You found out you were pregnant at eight weeks, which is a very usual time to find out. You arrange for child care—sixty per cent of people who have abortions are already parents—you get the money together, you’re going to have to travel out of state. You go to the next state that you can go to, and you find out you’re too far along for them. So now it’s going to be three times as much money. The cost goes up because the complexity of care goes up. If you travel four or five states over, how many days off is that, how many days of child care?”

On the second day, thin sticks of laminaria—sterilized, dried seaweed—are grabbed with forceps and placed in the cervix to aid in dilation.

On the third day, Nuzzo, the nurse-midwife, induces the delivery of fetal tissue from the uterus. The clinic does not have an anesthesiologist on staff. But, Nuzzo notes, the staff “helps control pain as much as possible,” using a range of medications, including mild sedatives. She adds, “Most people don’t remember their procedures.”

Some people pursue late abortions with wanted pregnancies, having just found out their fetuses have grave anomalies. Such was the case for Kate Cox, a Texas woman whose fetus was discovered to have a lethal genetic condition, and whose plan to have an abortion in state was recently thwarted by the Texas Supreme Court. Some patients have just been given their own diagnoses—of cancer, for instance. “They want to receive chemotherapy, and they’re, like, ‘I can’t do this. I want to save my own life,’ ” Horvath explained. Other women, she added, have had to assimilate devastating new facts—“like the fact that the person who got you pregnant turns out to be an abuser who beats the shit out of you.” There are also patients who are either too young to have a regular menstrual cycle or old enough to be approaching menopause, and did not realize until very late that they are pregnant.

A staffer places a sheet between a patient and a clinician who is using a long needle to administer an injection that stops the fetal heartbeat.

Top left: Mifepristone, which is administered on the first day of the late-abortion process. The Supreme Court will soon decide whether to uphold a lower-court ruling making the medication less accessible. Nuzzo says that if the drug were unavailable it would likely “add another day to the whole process, extending the wait times for patients and limiting the clinic’s capacity.” Top right: A clinician prepares for a procedure. Bottom left: A patient on her third day of treatment. Bottom right: A speculum, which is used to examine the cervix.

One woman Shannon photographed, a thirty-six-year-old whom I’ll call Amanda, was seven months along when she came to the clinic. Several years earlier, Amanda had been given a diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome, and doctors had told her that the condition made it very unlikely that she could conceive without in-vitro fertilization. Because of the aftereffects of recent weight-loss surgery—nausea when she felt too full—she didn’t even consider that she might be pregnant until almost thirty weeks. When a home test came back positive, Amanda was floored. She told me that she’d never wanted kids. She’d been sexually abused as a child, struggled with depression, and was living from paycheck to paycheck; the man with whom she’d gotten pregnant had no interest in a baby. “I was very much not in control of my own life,” she said.

A morning staff meeting. About twenty people work at Partners in Abortion Care, including a social worker who helps arrange for temporary housing for travelling patients. One woman fleeing domestic abuse arrived with only the clothes she was wearing; the staff gave her a Target gift card to buy a bra. Nuzzo says, “Our schedulers spend several hours with each patient on the phone before they come—arranging schedules, getting medical information. Patients wonder what the procedure will be like, where their kids can be while it’s happening.”

It took two weeks to find a place that could do the necessary ultrasound to determine precisely how far along Amanda was; to enlist a friend to accompany her from Maine, where she lived, to Maryland; and to get the time off from her job, which is in retail. A later abortion can resemble going into labor, and take up to three days. First, you must wait for the cervix to dilate. Amanda and her friend stayed at a nearby hotel and returned to the clinic each day. The clinic’s staff had spent hours connecting Amanda with organizations that help fund trips to other states for legal abortions. Such assistance is provided to nearly every patient. “Getting this procedure—it’s a huge fight for women right now,” Amanda told me.

—Margaret Talbot

Stacey Leigh Rubin, an ob-gyn who works at the clinic, wears a necklace with a miniature coat hanger, symbolizing the dangerous measures women sometimes resorted to when abortion was illegal. Rubin says, “Now the danger is less that women end up septic in the E.R. and more that they risk prosecution.”

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By Stephania Taladrid

By Amy Davidson Sorkin

By Isaac Chotiner

Abortion in America: A Visual Timeline

Key moments in the battle for abortion rights in the United States.

The complicated history of abortion rights in the United States dates back to colonial days and continues to be a controversial issue. With the Supreme Court overturning the ruling in the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, we look back at some of the most significant events in the county’s fight over abortion rights.

1800’s: Connecticut was the first U.S. state to make abortion a criminal offense. This was codified in a state statute in 1821 that punished any person who provided or took poison or “other noxious and destructive substance” with the intent to cause “the miscarriage of any woman, then being quick with child.”

In 1857, anti-abortion rights advocate and women’s reproductive health pioneer Dr. Horatio Storer helped start the movement which would later be called the Physicians’ Crusade Against Abortion. Later that year, he led a committee to investigate what he called criminal abortions in the state of Massachusetts, proposing that abortion in all instances was a criminal act and that the law did not go far enough to punish that alleged crime. His actions are considered largely responsible for the increase in law criminalizing abortion in the late 1800s.

The Comstock Act of 1873 made it illegal to send “obscene, lewd or lascivious,” “immoral,” or “indecent” publications through the mail. This included sending any materials containing information connected to contraception or abortions.

By the 1900s, abortion was illegal in every state. The laws varied from state to state, with some allowing for abortion to protect the woman’s life or to terminate pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

1920’s to 1940's

In 1921, Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League; the organization would become the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942.

Throughout the Depression years abortions are believed to have increased due to the higher levels of maternal deaths at this time. Countless women died as a result of botched abortions; underground abortion clinics were raided, and doctors arrested.

PHOTOS: A look back at women's suffrage in the United States

PHOTOS: Key moments in fight for gay rights

1955 Planned Parenthood held a conference titled “Abortion in the United States.” Which included testimony from sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, Dr. G. Lotrell Timanus and Planned Parenthod’s then-medical director Mary Calderone. A record of the conference is published in 1958, launching a national discussion on reformed abortion laws.

The arrival of the Equal Rights Movement to the political stage included a push to demand more rights for women. Legal access to contraception and abortion were on the agenda. President John F. Kennedy formed the Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) which was established to advise the President of the United States on issues concerning women.

There were many advances toward abortion rights in the 1960s include the establishment of The Society for Human Abortion in San Francisco in 1963, which challenged the law by openly providing information on abortion and conception.

In 1967, Colorado became the first state to decriminalize abortion in cases of rape, incest, or in which pregnancy would lead to permanent physical disability of the woman. Similar laws were later passed in California, Oregon and North Carolina.

The civil rights era in photos

Individual states continued to expand abortion rights throughout the United States. Hawaii became the first state to fully legalize abortions at the request of the woman in 1970. In the same year, New York allowed abortions up to the 24th week of pregnancy and similar laws were soon passed in Alaska and Washington.

In 1971, the groundbreaking court case known as Roe v. Wade was brought in front of the Supreme Court. An unmarried pregnant woman from Texas referred to in court documents as “Jane Roe” challenged a state law that makes it illegal for a doctor to perform an abortion unless a woman’s life is at stake. The woman was later identified as Norma McCorvey.

By the end of 1972, 13 states had more inclusive abortion laws similar to those passed in Colorado in 1967, while Mississippi allowed abortion in cases of rape or incest only, and Alabama and Massachusetts allowed abortions only in cases where the woman's physical health was endangered. During this period, women seeking an abortion would often travel to a state where abortion was legal to undergo the procedure.

In 1973 the Supreme Court decision in the Roe v. Wade case ruled in favor of Roe and abortion was legalized throughout the United States.

In 1976, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, banning the use of Medicaid and other federal funds for abortions.

In 1981, with the Bellotti v. Baird case, the Supreme Court ruled that pregnant minors can petition the court for permission to have an abortion without parental notification.

With the Webster v. Reproductive Health Services case, heard in 1989, the Supreme Court upheld a Missouri law that imposed restrictions on the use of state funds, facilities, and employees in performing, assisting with, or counseling abortions. This allowed for states to legislate in a way that had previously been thought to be illegal under Roe v Wade.

President Bill Clinton signed the Freedom of Access to Clinics Act, on May 26, 1994. The Act makes it a federal crime to physically obstruct the entrance to a clinic or to use force, the threat of force, or physical obstruction, such as a sit-in, to interfere with, injure, or intimidate clinic workers or women seeking abortions or other reproductive health services.

In 1995, Congress passed the HR 1833 Bill, also know as Partial-Birth Abortion Act, which makes it illegal for any doctor to knowingly perform a partial-birth abortion except when necessary to save the mother’s life.

However, on April 10 of the following year, President Bill Clinton vetoed the 1995 Partial-Birth Abortion Act preventing it from coming into law.

President George W. Bush signed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, on Aug. 5, 2002, affirming legal protection to an infant born alive after a failed attempt at induced abortion.

The following year, the House approved the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush on Nov. 5, 2003.

In 2016, the Supreme Court made a ruling on the Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt case. The final decision dictated that Texas could not place restrictions on abortion services that create an undue burden for women seeking an abortion.

2022 In May, 2022, a leaked draft opinion by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito indicated that the Court would strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights.

On June 24, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade leaving abortion decisions up to states, and no longer a constitutional right.

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• America’s Abortion Quandary

1. Americans’ views on whether, and in what circumstances, abortion should be legal

Table of contents.

• Abortion at various stages of pregnancy 
• Abortion and circumstances of pregnancy 
• Parental notification for minors seeking abortion
• Penalties for abortions performed illegally 
• Public views of what would change the number of abortions in the U.S.
• A majority of Americans say women should have more say in setting abortion policy in the U.S.
• How do certain arguments about abortion resonate with Americans?
• In their own words: How Americans feel about abortion 
• Personal connections to abortion 
• Religion’s impact on views about abortion
• Acknowledgments
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology

As the long-running debate over abortion reaches another  key moment at the Supreme Court  and in  state legislatures across the country , a majority of U.S. adults continue to say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. About six-in-ten Americans (61%) say abortion should be legal in “all” or “most” cases, while 37% think abortion should be  illegal  in all or most cases. These views have changed little over the past several years: In 2019, for example, 61% of adults said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 38% said it should be illegal in all or most cases.    Most respondents in the new survey took one of the middle options when first asked about their views on abortion, saying either that abortion should be legal in  most  cases (36%) or illegal in  most  cases (27%). 

Respondents who said abortion should either be legal in  all  cases or illegal in  all  cases received a follow-up question asking whether there should be any exceptions to such laws. Overall, 25% of adults initially said abortion should be legal in all cases, but about a quarter of this group (6% of all U.S. adults) went on to say that there should be some exceptions when abortion should be against the law.

One-in-ten adults initially answered that abortion should be illegal in all cases, but about one-in-five of these respondents (2% of all U.S. adults) followed up by saying that there are some exceptions when abortion should be permitted. 

Altogether, seven-in-ten Americans say abortion should be legal in some cases and illegal in others, including 42% who say abortion should be generally legal, but with some exceptions, and 29% who say it should be generally illegal, except in certain cases. Much smaller shares take absolutist views when it comes to the legality of abortion in the U.S., maintaining that abortion should be legal in all cases with no exceptions (19%) or illegal in all circumstances (8%). 

There is a modest gender gap in views of whether abortion should be legal, with women slightly more likely than men to say abortion should be legal in all cases or in all cases but with some exceptions (63% vs. 58%). 

Younger adults are considerably more likely than older adults to say abortion should be legal: Three-quarters of adults under 30 (74%) say abortion should be generally legal, including 30% who say it should be legal in all cases without exception. 

But there is an even larger gap in views toward abortion by partisanship: 80% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 38% of Republicans and GOP leaners.  Previous Center research  has shown this gap widening over the past 15 years. 

Still, while partisans diverge in views of whether abortion should mostly be legal or illegal, most Democrats and Republicans do not view abortion in absolutist terms. Just 13% of Republicans say abortion should be against the law in all cases without exception; 47% say it should be illegal with some exceptions. And while three-in-ten Democrats say abortion should be permitted in all circumstances, half say it should mostly be legal – but with some exceptions. 

There also are sizable divisions within both partisan coalitions by ideology. For instance, while a majority of moderate and liberal Republicans say abortion should mostly be legal (60%), just 27% of conservative Republicans say the same. Among Democrats, self-described liberals are twice as apt as moderates and conservatives to say abortion should be legal in all cases without exception (42% vs. 20%).

Regardless of partisan affiliation, adults who say they personally know someone who has had an abortion – such as a friend, relative or themselves – are more likely to say abortion should be legal than those who say they do not know anyone who had an abortion.

Views toward abortion also vary considerably by religious affiliation – specifically among large Christian subgroups and religiously unaffiliated Americans. 

For example, roughly three-quarters of White evangelical Protestants say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. This is far higher than the share of White non-evangelical Protestants (38%) or Black Protestants (28%) who say the same. 

Despite  Catholic teaching on abortion , a slim majority of U.S. Catholics (56%) say abortion should be legal. This includes 13% who say it should be legal in all cases without exception, and 43% who say it should be legal, but with some exceptions. 

Compared with Christians, religiously unaffiliated adults are far more likely to say abortion should be legal overall – and significantly more inclined to say it should be legal in all cases without exception. Within this group, atheists stand out: 97% say abortion should be legal, including 53% who say it should be legal in all cases without exception. Agnostics and those who describe their religion as “nothing in particular” also overwhelmingly say that abortion should be legal, but they are more likely than atheists to say there are some circumstances when abortion should be against the law.

Although the survey was conducted among Americans of many religious backgrounds, including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, it did not obtain enough respondents from non-Christian groups to report separately on their responses.

As a  growing number of states  debate legislation to restrict abortion – often after a certain stage of pregnancy – Americans express complex views about when   abortion should generally be legal and when it should be against the law. Overall, a majority of adults (56%) say that how long a woman has been pregnant should matter in determining when abortion should be legal, while far fewer (14%) say that this should  not  be a factor. An additional one-quarter of the public says that abortion should either be legal (19%) or illegal (8%) in all circumstances without exception; these respondents did not receive this question.

Among men and women, Republicans and Democrats, and Christians and religious “nones” who do not take absolutist positions about abortion on either side of the debate, the prevailing view is that the stage of the pregnancy should be a factor in determining whether abortion should be legal.

Americans broadly are more likely to favor restrictions on abortion later in pregnancy than earlier in pregnancy. Many adults also say the legality of abortion depends on other factors at every stage of pregnancy. 

Overall, a plurality of adults (44%) say that abortion should be legal six weeks into a pregnancy, which is about when cardiac activity (sometimes called a fetal heartbeat) may be detected and before many women know they are pregnant; this includes 19% of adults who say abortion should be legal in all cases without exception, as well as 25% of adults who say it should be legal at that point in a pregnancy. An additional 7% say abortion generally should be legal in most cases, but that the stage of the pregnancy should not matter in determining legality. 1

One-in-five Americans (21%) say abortion should be  illegal  at six weeks. This includes 8% of adults who say abortion should be illegal in all cases without exception as well as 12% of adults who say that abortion should be illegal at this point. Additionally, 6% say abortion should be illegal in most cases and how long a woman has been pregnant should not matter in determining abortion’s legality. Nearly one-in-five respondents, when asked whether abortion should be legal six weeks into a pregnancy, say “it depends.” 

Americans are more divided about what should be permitted 14 weeks into a pregnancy – roughly at the end of the first trimester – although still, more people say abortion should be legal at this stage (34%) than illegal (27%), and about one-in-five say “it depends.”

Fewer adults say abortion should be legal 24 weeks into a pregnancy – about when a healthy fetus could survive outside the womb with medical care. At this stage, 22% of adults say abortion should be legal, while nearly twice as many (43%) say it should be  illegal . Again, about one-in-five adults (18%) say whether abortion should be legal at 24 weeks depends on other factors. 

Respondents who said that abortion should be illegal 24 weeks into a pregnancy or that “it depends” were asked a follow-up question about whether abortion at that point should be legal if the pregnant woman’s life is in danger or the baby would be born with severe disabilities. Most who received this question say abortion in these circumstances should be legal (54%) or that it depends on other factors (40%). Just 4% of this group maintained that abortion should be illegal in this case.

This pattern in views of abortion – whereby more favor greater restrictions on abortion as a pregnancy progresses – is evident across a variety of demographic and political groups. 

Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to say that abortion should be legal at each of the three stages of pregnancy asked about on the survey. For example, while 26% of Republicans say abortion should be legal at six weeks of pregnancy, more than twice as many Democrats say the same (61%). Similarly, while about a third of Democrats say abortion should be legal at 24 weeks of pregnancy, just 8% of Republicans say the same. 

However, neither Republicans nor Democrats uniformly express absolutist views about abortion throughout a pregnancy. Republicans are divided on abortion at six weeks: Roughly a quarter say it should be legal (26%), while a similar share say it depends (24%). A third say it should be illegal. 

Democrats are divided about whether abortion should be legal or illegal at 24 weeks, with 34% saying it should be legal, 29% saying it should be illegal, and 21% saying it depends. 

There also is considerable division among each partisan group by ideology. At six weeks of pregnancy, just one-in-five conservative Republicans (19%) say that abortion should be legal; moderate and liberal Republicans are twice as likely as their conservative counterparts to say this (39%). 

At the same time, about half of liberal Democrats (48%) say abortion at 24 weeks should be legal, while 17% say it should be illegal. Among conservative and moderate Democrats, the pattern is reversed: A plurality (39%) say abortion at this stage should be illegal, while 24% say it should be legal. 

Christian adults are far less likely than religiously unaffiliated Americans to say abortion should be legal at each stage of pregnancy.  

Among Protestants, White evangelicals stand out for their opposition to abortion. At six weeks of pregnancy, for example, 44% say abortion should be illegal, compared with 17% of White non-evangelical Protestants and 15% of Black Protestants. This pattern also is evident at 14 and 24 weeks of pregnancy, when half or more of White evangelicals say abortion should be illegal.

At six weeks, a plurality of Catholics (41%) say abortion should be legal, while smaller shares say it depends or it should be illegal. But by 24 weeks, about half of Catholics (49%) say abortion should be illegal. 

Among adults who are religiously unaffiliated, atheists stand out for their views. They are the only group in which a sizable majority says abortion should be  legal  at each point in a pregnancy. Even at 24 weeks, 62% of self-described atheists say abortion should be legal, compared with smaller shares of agnostics (43%) and those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” (31%). 

As is the case with adults overall, most religiously affiliated and religiously unaffiliated adults who originally say that abortion should be illegal or “it depends” at 24 weeks go on to say either it should be legal or it depends if the pregnant woman’s life is in danger or the baby would be born with severe disabilities. Few (4% and 5%, respectively) say abortion should be illegal at 24 weeks in these situations.

The stage of the pregnancy is not the only factor that shapes people’s views of when abortion should be legal. Sizable majorities of U.S. adults say that abortion should be legal if the pregnancy threatens the life or health of the pregnant woman (73%) or if pregnancy is the result of rape (69%). 

There is less consensus when it comes to circumstances in which a baby may be born with severe disabilities or health problems: 53% of Americans overall say abortion should be legal in such circumstances, including 19% who say abortion should be legal in all cases and 35% who say there are some situations where abortions should be illegal, but that it should be legal in this specific type of case. A quarter of adults say “it depends” in this situation, and about one-in-five say it should be illegal (10% who say illegal in this specific circumstance and 8% who say illegal in all circumstances). 

There are sizable divides between and among partisans when it comes to views of abortion in these situations. Overall, Republicans are less likely than Democrats to say abortion should be legal in each of the three circumstances outlined in the survey. However, both partisan groups are less likely to say abortion should be legal when the baby may be born with severe disabilities or health problems than when the woman’s life is in danger or the pregnancy is the result of rape. 

Just as there are wide gaps among Republicans by ideology on whether how long a woman has been pregnant should be a factor in determining abortion’s legality, there are large gaps when it comes to circumstances in which abortions should be legal. For example, while a clear majority of moderate and liberal Republicans (71%) say abortion should be permitted when the pregnancy is the result of rape, conservative Republicans are more divided. About half (48%) say it should be legal in this situation, while 29% say it should be illegal and 21% say it depends.

The ideological gaps among Democrats are slightly less pronounced. Most Democrats say abortion should be legal in each of the three circumstances – just to varying degrees. While 77% of liberal Democrats say abortion should be legal if a baby will be born with severe disabilities or health problems, for example, a smaller majority of conservative and moderate Democrats (60%) say the same. 

White evangelical Protestants again stand out for their views on abortion in various circumstances; they are far less likely than White non-evangelical or Black Protestants to say abortion should be legal across each of the three circumstances described in the survey. 

While about half of White evangelical Protestants (51%) say abortion should be legal if a pregnancy threatens the woman’s life or health, clear majorities of other Protestant groups and Catholics say this should be the case. The same pattern holds in views of whether abortion should be legal if the pregnancy is the result of rape. Most White non-evangelical Protestants (75%), Black Protestants (71%) and Catholics (66%) say abortion should be permitted in this instance, while White evangelicals are more divided: 40% say it should be legal, while 34% say it should be  illegal  and about a quarter say it depends. 

Mirroring the pattern seen among adults overall, opinions are more varied about a situation where a baby might be born with severe disabilities or health issues. For instance, half of Catholics say abortion should be legal in such cases, while 21% say it should be illegal and 27% say it depends on the situation. 

Most religiously unaffiliated adults – including overwhelming majorities of self-described atheists – say abortion should be legal in each of the three circumstances. 

Seven-in-ten U.S. adults say that doctors or other health care providers should be required to notify a parent or legal guardian if the pregnant woman seeking an abortion is under 18, while 28% say they should not be required to do so.  

Women are slightly less likely than men to say this should be a requirement (67% vs. 74%). And younger adults are far less likely than those who are older to say a parent or guardian should be notified before a doctor performs an abortion on a pregnant woman who is under 18. In fact, about half of adults ages 18 to 24 (53%) say a doctor should  not  be required to notify a parent. By contrast, 64% of adults ages 25 to 29 say doctors  should  be required to notify parents of minors seeking an abortion, as do 68% of adults ages 30 to 49 and 78% of those 50 and older. 

A large majority of Republicans (85%) say that a doctor should be required to notify the parents of a minor before an abortion, though conservative Republicans are somewhat more likely than moderate and liberal Republicans to take this position (90% vs. 77%). 

The ideological divide is even more pronounced among Democrats. Overall, a slim majority of Democrats (57%) say a parent should be notified in this circumstance, but while 72% of conservative and moderate Democrats hold this view, just 39% of liberal Democrats agree. 

By and large, most Protestant (81%) and Catholic (78%) adults say doctors should be required to notify parents of minors before an abortion. But religiously unaffiliated Americans are more divided. Majorities of both atheists (71%) and agnostics (58%) say doctors should  not  be required to notify parents of minors seeking an abortion, while six-in-ten of those who describe their religion as “nothing in particular” say such notification should be required. 

Americans are divided over who should be penalized – and what that penalty should be – in a situation where an abortion occurs illegally. 

Overall, a 60% majority of adults say that if a doctor or provider performs an abortion in a situation where it is illegal, they should face a penalty. But there is less agreement when it comes to others who may have been involved in the procedure. 

While about half of the public (47%) says a woman who has an illegal abortion should face a penalty, a nearly identical share (50%) says she should not. And adults are more likely to say people who help find and schedule or pay for an abortion in a situation where it is illegal should  not  face a penalty than they are to say they should.

Views about penalties are closely correlated with overall attitudes about whether abortion should be legal or illegal. For example, just 20% of adults who say abortion should be legal in all cases without exception think doctors or providers should face a penalty if an abortion were carried out in a situation where it was illegal. This compares with 91% of those who think abortion should be illegal in all cases without exceptions. Still, regardless of how they feel about whether abortion should be legal or not, Americans are more likely to say a doctor or provider should face a penalty compared with others involved in the procedure. 

Among those who say medical providers and/or women should face penalties for illegal abortions, there is no consensus about whether they should get jail time or a less severe punishment. Among U.S. adults overall, 14% say women should serve jail time if they have an abortion in a situation where it is illegal, while 16% say they should receive a fine or community service and 17% say they are not sure what the penalty should be. 

A somewhat larger share of Americans (25%) say doctors or other medical providers should face jail time for providing illegal abortion services, while 18% say they should face fines or community service and 17% are not sure. About three-in-ten U.S. adults (31%) say doctors should lose their medical license if they perform an abortion in a situation where it is illegal.

Men are more likely than women to favor penalties for the woman or doctor in situations where abortion is illegal. About half of men (52%) say women should face a penalty, while just 43% of women say the same. Similarly, about two-thirds of men (64%) say a doctor should face a penalty, while 56% of women agree.

Republicans are considerably more likely than Democrats to say both women and doctors should face penalties – including jail time. For example, 21% of Republicans say the woman who had the abortion should face jail time, and 40% say this about the doctor who performed the abortion. Among Democrats, far smaller shares say the woman (8%) or doctor (13%) should serve jail time.  

White evangelical Protestants are more likely than other Protestant groups to favor penalties for abortions in situations where they are illegal. Fully 24% say the woman who had the abortion should serve time in jail, compared with just 12% of White non-evangelical Protestants or Black Protestants. And while about half of White evangelicals (48%) say doctors who perform illegal abortions should serve jail time, just 26% of White non-evangelical Protestants and 18% of Black Protestants share this view.

• Only respondents who said that abortion should be legal in some cases but not others and that how long a woman has been pregnant should matter in determining whether abortion should be legal received questions about abortion’s legality at specific points in the pregnancy.  ↩

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2.5: Common Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis and Kristina Grob)

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11 Common Arguments about Abortion Nathan Nobis and Kristina Grob 27

1 Introduction

Abortion is often in the news. In the course of writing this essay in early 2019, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama and Missouri passed legislation to outlaw and criminalize abortions starting at six to eight weeks in pregnancy, with more states following. Federal law, however, generally permits abortions, so it is unclear what the legal outcome here will be.

Abortion is a political issue – with different political parties tending to have different perspectives on the issue – because abortion is a moral or ethical issue. (These two words mean the same thing).

Some believe that abortions are typically morally permissible , or not wrong , and so believe that abortions should be legal. If doing something isn’t wrong, it shouldn’t be illegal: criminalizing actions that aren’t wrong is a form of injustice.

Other believe that abortion is morally wrong, that it’s often wrong, maybe nearly always or even always .

Some people argue that even though they believe abortion is wrong, it should remain legal: after all, if every morally wrong action was illegal, we would all be in jail! Seriously though, there are many actions that are morally wrong, even really hurtful, that the government shouldn’t try to prevent or punish. (You can supply the potential examples to make the point). They might also think that, for a variety of other reasons, their personal moral views on the issues shouldn’t be made into law for all.

Others argue that abortions are wrong and should be illegal. What types of wrongdoing should be illegal? This question isn’t easy to answer: it’s abstract and general. One answer is that seriously, extremely wrong actions should be illegal . This might seem plausible, since many illegal actions are seriously wrong, but since there are other very wrong actions that shouldn’t be illegal, this answer isn’t perfect.

2 Defining “Abortion”

Abortion might personally affect you or someone you know: you or a partner, spouse, relative or friend may have had an abortion, have considered abortion, or will have an abortion. But what is an abortion? There are a number of common definitions, some of which are better and others which are worse:

Definition 1 : An abortion is the murder of an unborn baby or child .

Definition 2 : An abortion is the intentional termination of a fetus to end a pregnancy.

Definition 3: An abortion is the intentional killing of a fetus to end a pregnancy.

Definition 3 is best. We’ll explain why after we show the problems with the first two definitions.

2.1 “Murdering Babies”

Definition 1 is common with certain groups of people, but even people who think abortion is wrong should reject it.

“Murder” means “wrongful killing,” and so this definition implies that abortion is wrong by definition , which it isn’t. This definition means that to know that abortion is wrong, we’d just need to reflect on the meaning of the word, and not give any reasons to think this. Murder is wrong by definition, but to know that any particular killing is murder, we need arguments. (Compare someone who calls the death penalty murder : we know it’s killing, but is it wrongful killing? We can’t just appeal to the definition of “murder”: we need arguments that this is wrongful killing). This definition also means that someone who claims that abortion is not wrong says that “Wrongful killing is not wrong,” which makes no sense. We can even call this a “question-begging” definition, since it assumes that abortion is wrong, which can’t be assumed . So this definition is problematic, even if abortion is wrong.

Definition 1 also describes fetuses as “babies” or “children.” While people are usually free to use whatever words how they want, people can say things that are false: calling something something doesn’t mean it’s really that thing. And the beginnings of something are usually not that thing: a pile of lumber and supplies is not a house; fabric, buttons and thread are not a shirt, and an embryo or early fetus is not a baby or child. So it’s false and misleading to call embryos and early fetuses “babies” or “children.”

Defining abortion in terms of “babies” seems to again result in a “question-begging” definition that assumes that abortion is wrong, since it is widely and correctly believed that it’s wrong to kill babies. We understand, however, that it’s wrong to kill babies because we think about born babies who are conscious and feeling and have other baby-like characteristics: these are the babies we have in mind when we think about the wrongness of killing babies, not early fetuses. Describing early fetuses as “babies” characterizes them either as something they are not or, at least, assumes things that need to argued for, which is misleading, both factually (in terms of what fetuses are like) and morally (insofar as it’s assumed that the rules about how babies should be treated clearly and straightforwardly apply to, say, embryos).

Part of the problem with this definition is that terms like “babies” and “children” encourage strong emotional responses. Babies and children are associated with value-laden terms such as innocence , vulnerability , preciousness , cuteness , and more. When we refer to unborn human beings as fetuses , some people become defensive because they see the word “fetus” as cold and sterile. But “fetus” is merely a helpful, and accurate, name for a stage of development, as is “baby,” “child,” “adolescent,” and “adult.” Distinguishing different stages of human development doesn’t commit anyone to a position on abortion, but it does help us understand what an abortion is .

In sum, defining abortion in terms of “murdering babies” is a bad definition: it misleads and assumes things it shouldn’t. Even those who think that abortion is wrong should not accept it.

2.2 “Termination”

The second definition describes abortion as an intentional action. This is good since a pregnant woman does not “have an abortion” if her pregnancy ends because of, say, a car accident. And “spontaneous abortions” or miscarriages are not intentional actions that can be judged morally: they just happen.

Definitions, however, are supposed to be informative, and the vague word “termination” doesn’t inform. If someone had literally no idea what an abortion was, it would be fair for them to ask what’s exactly involved in a “termination” of a pregnancy. A discussion between persons A and B – who knows nothing about abortion – might go like this:

“There is a pregnant woman (or girl) who does not want to have a baby, a living baby, obviously. And so we are going to do something to something insider her – that is developing into that living baby – so she does not have that baby. The action we are going to do is the ‘termination.’”

“ That something inside her, developing into that living baby, it is living? ”

“Yes. It started from a living egg and sperm cell.”

“So you are making something living not living , right? That sounds like killing something, right?”

Person B’s reasoning seems correct: abortions do involve killing. The word “termination” obscures that fact and so makes for an unclear definition. This doesn’t make the definition wrong ; to “terminate” something means to end it in some way , and abortion ends the development of a fetus. But it doesn’t say how abortion ends that development and so is not ideal.

Why might someone accept this definition? Probably because they are reasoning this way:

Killing is wrong. So if abortion is killing, then it’s wrong. But I don’t believe that abortion is wrong, or I am unsure that abortion is wrong, so I don’t want to call it a ‘killing,’ since that means it’s wrong.

The problem here is the first step. Not all killing is wrong . Lots of killing is perfectly fine and raises no moral issues at all: killing mold, killing bacteria, killing plants, killing fleas, killing random cells and tissues (even ones that are human, say cheek cells or skin cells), and more. We don’t even need to observe that it’s sometimes not wrong to kill adult human beings to make the point that not all killing is wrong.

This means that it’s not problematic to define abortion in terms of “killing.” The important questions then are, “Is abortion wrongful killing, or killing that’s not wrong?” and “When, if ever, might it be wrongful killing and when, if ever, might it be permissible killing? And why ?”

2.3 “Killing”

A final definition understands abortion in terms of an intentional killing of a fetus to end a pregnancy . This definition is accurate , informative since it tells us how the fetus would be “terminated”, and morally-neutral : it doesn’t assume that the killing involved in abortions is not wrong or that it’s wrong. This is a good definition. 28

3 Why Most Abortions Occur

The Guttmacher “Fact Sheet” 29 provides an overview of the research on why abortions occur and other relevant information:

This information suggests, at least, that if women were economically better off, had better access to affordable child-care and other forms of support, and had ready access to more reliable forms of contraception, there would likely be fewer abortions.

4 Bad Arguments: “Question-Begging” Arguments & “Everyday” Arguments

We’ll now discuss some commonly given arguments about abortion that, unfortunately, are rather poor.

4.1 “Question-begging” Arguments

Many common arguments about abortion are what’s called “question-begging,” which means the reason given for the conclusion assumes that conclusion. This means that you wouldn’t accept the reason as a good reason to believe the conclusion unless you already believed that conclusion! This is circular reasoning, and arguments like this are always bad.

4.1.1 “Against” Abortion:

Many common arguments against abortion are question begging. Here are some:

Abortion – killing fetuses to end pregnancies – is wrong because:

These premises all assume that abortion is wrong. To explain:

People would believe these claims only if they already believed abortion is wrong, so these claims should not sway anyone who wants to think critically about the issues.

4.1.2 “For” Abortion:

People who think abortion should be allowed also sometimes give question-begging arguments. Here are a few:

Abortion is not wrong because:

These premises likewise assume their conclusions. To explain:

Question-begging arguments are common, on many issues – not just abortion, and they should be rejected, by everyone, always.

4.2 “Everyday” Arguments

Now we will discuss some other common arguments, that you might often hear or read about, that are also poor but often not because they are question-begging. We’ll begin with some arguments against abortion.

4.2.1 “Against” Abortion

4.2.1.1 “Abortion ends a life.”

People often ask, “When does life begin?” Some people wonder if fetuses are “alive,” or when they become “life.” Some argue abortion is wrong because “life begins at conception,” whereas those who support abortion sometimes respond that “fetuses aren’t even alive!” There are a lot of debates here, and to get past them, we need to ask what is meant by alive, living or a life .

This is often considered a “deep” question, but it’s not. Consider this: are eggs (in women) alive? Are sperm cells alive? Yes to both, and so when a sperm fertilizes an egg, what results is a biologically living thing. Above, we defined abortion as a type of killing and, of course, you can only kill living things. So, yes, fetuses are alive, biologically alive , from conception: they are engaged in the types of life processes reviewed on page 1 of any biology textbook.

Some people think that fetuses being alive shows that abortion is wrong, and so they enthusiastically argue that fetuses are biologically alive. Some who think that abortion is not wrong try to argue that fetuses are not even alive. These responses suggest concern with an argument like this:

The second premise, however, is obviously false: uncontroversial examples show it. Mold, bacteria, mosquitos and plants are biologically alive, but they aren’t wrong to kill. So, just as acknowledging that abortion involves killing doesn’t mean that abortion is wrong, recognizing that biological life begins at conception doesn’t mean that abortion is wrong either.

Now, perhaps people really mean something like “morally significant life” or “life with rights,” but that’s not people what say: if that’s what they mean, they should say that.

4.2.1.2 “Abortion kills babies and children.”

Classifying fetuses as babies or children obscures any potentially relevant moral differences between, say, a 6-week old fetus and a 6-day old baby or 6-year old child. This claim assumes that fetuses – at any stage of development – and babies are the same sort of entity. This claim involves loaded emotional language, is inaccurate and is question-begging, as we discussed above in the section on definitions: this saying doesn’t contribute to a good argument.

4.2.1.3 “Abortion is murder.”

Murder is a term for a specific kind of killing. As a moral term, it refers to especially wrongful killing. As a legal term, it refers to intentional killing that is both unlawful and malicious. Since abortion is legal in the US, most abortions cannot be legally classified as murder because they are not illegal or unlawful. Moreover, abortions don’t seem to be done with malicious intent. When people claim that abortion is murder, what they seem to mean is either that abortion should be re-classified as murder or that abortion is wrong , or both. Either way, arguments are needed to support that, not question-begging slogans.

4.2.1.4 “Abortion kills innocent beings.”

Fetuses are often described as “innocent,” meaning that they have done nothing wrong to deserve being killed. Since killing anyone innocent is wrong, this suggests that abortion is wrong. “Innocence,” however, seems to be a concept that only applies to beings that can do wrong and choose not to. Since fetuses can’t do anything – they especially cannot do anything wrong that would make them “guilty” – the concept of innocence does not seem to apply to them. So saying that banning abortion would “protect the innocent” is inaccurate since abortion doesn’t kill “innocent” beings: the concept of innocence just doesn’t apply.

4.2.1.5 “The Bible says abortion is wrong.”

People often appeal to religion to justify their moral views. Some say that God thinks abortion is wrong, but it’s a fair question how they might know this, especially since others claim to know that God doesn’t think that. In reply, it is sometimes said that the Bible says abortion is wrong (and that’s how we know what God thinks).

But the Bible doesn’t say that abortion is wrong: it doesn’t discuss abortion at all. There is a commandment against killing , but, as our discussion above makes clear, this requires interpretation about what and who is wrong to kill: presumably the Bible doesn’t mean that killing mold or bacteria or plants is wrong. And there are verses (Exodus 21:22-24) that, on some translations, suggest that fetuses lack the value of born persons, since penalties for damage to each differ. This coincides with common Jewish views on the issue, that the needs and rights of the mother outweigh any the fetus might have.

However any verses are best interpreted, they still don't show that abortion is wrong. This is because the Bible is not always a reliable guide to morality, since there are troubling verses that seem to require killing people for trivial “crimes,” allow enslaving people (and beating them), require obeying all government officials and more. And Jesus commanded loving your neighbor as yourself, loving your enemies and taking care of orphans, immigrants and refugees, and offered many other moral guidelines that many people regard as false. 30 Simple moral arguments from the Bible assume that that if the Bible says an action is wrong, then it really is wrong (and if the Bible says something’s not wrong, it’s not wrong ), and both premises don’t seem to be literally true.

This all suggests that people sometimes appeal to the Bible in selective and self-serving ways: they come to the Bible with their previously-held moral assumptions and seek to find something in the Bible to justify them.

There is an interesting Biblical connection here worth mentioning though. Some argue that if women who want abortions are prevented from having them, that forces them to remain pregnant and give birth and that this is like forcing women to be like the “Good Samaritan” who went out of his way, at expense to himself, to help a stranger in great need (Luke 10:25-37). (The analogy is imperfect, as analogies always are).

The problem is in no other area of life is anyone forced to be a Good Samaritan like a pregnant woman would: e.g., you can’t be forced to donate an organ to anyone in need (even to your child or parent); you can’t even be forced to donate your organs after you are dead! Nobody other than pregnant women would be forced by the government – under threat of imprisonment or worse – to use their body to help sustain someone else’s life. It is unfair to require women to be Good Samaritans but allow the rest of us to be like the “priest” and “Levite” in the story who helped nobody.

Nevertheless, it’s important to remember that laws should not be based on any particular religions. If you are not, say, a Hindu, or a Buddhist, or a Rastafarian, you probably don’t want laws based solely on one of those religion’s values. Laws should be religiously-neutral; on that we all should agree.

4.2.1.6 “Abortion stops a beating heart.”

This claim, if given as an argument, assumes that stopping a beating heart is wrong . The assumption, however, is just obviously untrue: e.g., during open heart surgery, surgeons temporarily stop the patient’s heart so that repair can be made to the still heart: they would permanently stop that heart if they replace it with an artificial heart. If there were somehow an independently beating heart, attached to nobody, that heart wouldn’t be wrong to stop. Whether a heart is wrong to stop or not depends on who is around that heart and their value or rights, not anything about that heart by itself. Finally, embryos and early fetuses do not even have hearts , as critics of recent “heartbeat” bills have observed! (The heart fully develops much later in pregnancy.)

If, however, this widely expressed concern about a heartbeat isn't meant to be taken literally, but is merely a metaphor or an emotional appeal, we submit that these are inappropriate for serious issues like this one.

4.2.1.7 “How would you like it if . .?”

Some ask, “How would you like it if your mother had had an abortion?” Others tell stories of how their mother almost had an abortion and how they are grateful she didn’t. Questions and stories like these sometimes persuade, but they shouldn’t. Consider some other questions:

All sorts of actions would have prevented each of our existences – if your parents had acted differently in many ways, you wouldn’t be here to entertain the question: at best, someone else would be 31 – but these actions aren’t wrong.

Some might reply that if you had been murdered as a baby, you wouldn’t be here to discuss it. True, but that baby was conscious, had feelings, and had a perspective on the world that ended in being murdered: an early fetus is not like that. We can empathetically imagine what it might have been like for that murdered child; we can’t do that with a never-been-conscious fetus, since there’s no perspective to imagine.

In sum, these are some common arguments given against abortion. They aren’t good. Everyone can do better.

4.2.2 Common Arguments “For” Abortion

Many common arguments “for” abortion are also weak. This is often because they simply don’t engage the concerns of people who oppose abortion. Consider these often-heard claims:

4.2.2.1 “Women have a right to do whatever they want with their bodies . . .”

Autonomy , your ability to make decisions about matters that profoundly affect your own life, is very important: it’s a core concern in medical ethics. But autonomy has limits: your autonomy doesn’t, say, justify murdering an innocent person , which is what some claim abortion is. The slogan that “women can do what they want . .” does not engage that claim or any arguments given in its favor, so it’s inadequate.

4.2.2.2 “People who oppose abortion are just trying to control women.”

They might be trying to do this. But they might be trying to ban abortion because they believe that abortion is wrong and should be illegal . Speculations about motives don’t engage or critique any arguments they might give to think that. (If you doubt that thinking critically about arguments and evidence here would do any good, do they have any better ideas that might do more good?).

4.2.2.3 “Men shouldn’t make decisions about matters affecting women.”

Insofar as women profoundly disagree on these issues, some women must be making bad decisions about matters affecting women: all women can’t be correct on the issues. And some men can understand that some arguments (endorsed sometimes by both women and men) are bad arguments and give good arguments on the issues. Someone’s sex or gender has little to no bearing on whether they can make good arguments about matters that affect them or anyone else. Furthermore, the existence of transgender men who have given birth further undermines the thought that one sex or gender is apt to have more correct views here.

4.2.2.4 “Women and girls will die if abortion isn’t allowed.”

This is true . However, this fact is apt to not be persuasive to some people who think that abortion is wrong: they will respond, “If someone dies because they are doing something wrong like having an abortion , that’s ‘on them,’ not those who are trying to prevent that wrong.” Observing that women will die if abortions are outlawed doesn’t engage any arguments that abortion is wrong or give much a reason to think that abortion is not wrong. Again, this type of engagement is necessary for progress on these issues.

In sum, while we agree that people who think that abortion is generally not morally wrong and should be legal are correct , they sometimes don’t offer very good reasons to think this, just like the opponents of abortion. An analysis of the more nuanced reasons in favor of abortion provided by philosophers will yield proper support for this viewpoint.

For Review and Discussion:

1. Do the reasons that people get abortions matter for its moral permissibility? Why or why not?

2. Describe the common arguments against abortion and assess them. Are they good or bad arguments? Do they make assumptions or claims that are problematic? Do the reasons provided actually provide evidence and reasons to oppose abortion?

3. Describe the common arguments for abortion and assess them. Are they good or bad arguments? Do they make assumptions or claims that are problematic? Do the reasons provided actually give evidence and reasons to support abortion?

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• Rom J Morphol Embryol
• v.61(1); Jan-Mar 2020

A research on abortion: ethics, legislation and socio-medical outcomes. Case study: Romania

Andreea mihaela niţă.

1 Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Craiova, Romania

Cristina Ilie Goga

This article presents a research study on abortion from a theoretical and empirical point of view. The theoretical part is based on the method of social documents analysis, and presents a complex perspective on abortion, highlighting items of medical, ethical, moral, religious, social, economic and legal elements. The empirical part presents the results of a sociological survey, based on the opinion survey method through the application of the enquiry technique, conducted in Romania, on a sample of 1260 women. The purpose of the survey is to identify Romanians perception on the decision to voluntary interrupt pregnancy, and to determine the core reasons in carrying out an abortion.

The analysis of abortion by means of medical and social documents

Abortion means a pregnancy interruption “before the fetus is viable” [ 1 ] or “before the fetus is able to live independently in the extrauterine environment, usually before the 20 th week of pregnancy” [ 2 ]. “Clinical miscarriage is both a common and distressing complication of early pregnancy with many etiological factors like genetic factors, immune factors, infection factors but also psychological factors” [ 3 ]. Induced abortion is a practice found in all countries, but the decision to interrupt the pregnancy involves a multitude of aspects of medical, ethical, moral, religious, social, economic, and legal order.

In a more simplistic manner, Winston Nagan has classified opinions which have as central element “abortion”, in two major categories: the opinion that the priority element is represented by fetus and his entitlement to life and the second opinion, which focuses around women’s rights [ 4 ].

From the medical point of view, since ancient times there have been four moments, generally accepted, which determine the embryo’s life: ( i ) conception; ( ii ) period of formation; ( iii ) detection moment of fetal movement; ( iv ) time of birth [ 5 ]. Contemporary medicine found the following moments in the evolution of intrauterine fetal: “ 1 . At 18 days of pregnancy, the fetal heartbeat can be perceived and it starts running the circulatory system; 2 . At 5 weeks, they become more clear: the nose, cheeks and fingers of the fetus; 3 . At 6 weeks, they start to function: the nervous system, stomach, kidneys and liver of the fetus, and its skeleton is clearly distinguished; 4 . At 7 weeks (50 days), brain waves are felt. The fetus has all the internal and external organs definitively outlined. 5 . At 10 weeks (70 days), the unborn child has all the features clearly defined as a child after birth (9 months); 6 . At 12 weeks (92 days, 3 months), the fetus has all organs definitely shaped, managing to move, lacking only the breath” [ 6 ]. Even if most of the laws that allow abortion consider the period up to 12 weeks acceptable for such an intervention, according to the above-mentioned steps, there can be defined different moments, which can represent the beginning of life. Nowadays, “abortion is one of the most common gynecological experiences and perhaps the majority of women will undergo an abortion in their lifetimes” [ 7 ]. “Safe abortions carry few health risks, but « every year, close to 20 million women risk their lives and health by undergoing unsafe abortions » and 25% will face a complication with permanent consequences” [ 8 , 9 ].

From the ethical point of view, most of the times, the interruption of pregnancy is on the border between woman’s right over her own body and the child’s (fetus) entitlement to life. Judith Jarvis Thomson supported the supremacy of woman’s right over her own body as a premise of freedom, arguing that we cannot force a person to bear in her womb and give birth to an unwanted child, if for different circumstances, she does not want to do this [ 10 ]. To support his position, the author uses an imaginary experiment, that of a violinist to which we are connected for nine months, in order to save his life. However, Thomson debates the problem of the differentiation between the fetus and the human being, by carrying out a debate on the timing which makes this difference (period of conception, 10 weeks of pregnancy, etc.) and highlighting that for people who support abortion, the fetus is not an alive human being [ 10 ].

Carol Gilligan noted that women undergo a true “moral dilemma”, a “moral conflict” with regards to voluntary interruption of pregnancy, such a decision often takes into account the human relationships, the possibility of not hurting the others, the responsibility towards others [ 11 ]. Gilligan applied qualitative interviews to a number of 29 women from different social classes, which were put in a position to decide whether or not to commit abortion. The interview focused on the woman’s choice, on alternative options, on individuals and existing conflicts. The conclusion was that the central moral issue was the conflict between the self (the pregnant woman) and others who may be hurt as a result of the potential pregnancy [ 12 ].

From the religious point of view, abortion is unacceptable for all religions and a small number of abortions can be seen in deeply religious societies and families. Christianity considers the beginning of human life from conception, and abortion is considered to be a form of homicide [ 13 ]. For Christians, “at the same time, abortion is giving up their faith”, riot and murder, which means that by an abortion we attack Jesus Christ himself and God [ 14 ]. Islam does not approve abortion, relying on the sacral life belief as specified in Chapter 6, Verse 151 of the Koran: “Do not kill a soul which Allah has made sacred (inviolable)” [ 15 ]. Buddhism considers abortion as a negative act, but nevertheless supports for medical reasons [ 16 ]. Judaism disapproves abortion, Tanah considering it to be a mortal sin. Hinduism considers abortion as a crime and also the greatest sin [ 17 ].

From the socio-economic point of view, the decision to carry out an abortion is many times determined by the relations within the social, family or financial frame. Moreover, studies have been conducted, which have linked the legalization of abortions and the decrease of the crime rate: “legalized abortion may lead to reduced crime either through reductions in cohort sizes or through lower per capita offending rates for affected cohorts” [ 18 ].

Legal regulation on abortion establishes conditions of the abortion in every state. In Europe and America, only in the XVIIth century abortion was incriminated and was considered an insignificant misdemeanor or a felony, depending on when was happening. Due to the large number of illegal abortions and deaths, two centuries later, many states have changed legislation within the meaning of legalizing voluntary interruption of pregnancy [ 6 ]. In contemporary society, international organizations like the United Nations or the European Union consider sexual and reproductive rights as fundamental rights [ 19 , 20 ], and promotes the acceptance of abortion as part of those rights. However, not all states have developed permissive legislation in the field of voluntary interruption of pregnancy.

Currently, at national level were established four categories of legislation on pregnancy interruption area:

( i )  Prohibitive legislations , ones that do not allow abortion, most often outlining exceptions in abortion in cases where the pregnant woman’s life is endangered. In some countries, there is a prohibition of abortion in all circumstances, however, resorting to an abortion in the case of an imminent threat to the mother’s life. Same regulation is also found in some countries where abortion is allowed in cases like rape, incest, fetal problems, etc. In this category are 66 states, with 25.5% of world population [ 21 ].

( ii )  Restrictive legislation that allow abortion in cases of health preservation . Loosely, the term “health” should be interpreted according to the World Health Organization (WHO) definition as: “health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” [ 22 ]. This type of legislation is adopted in 59 states populated by 13.8% of the world population [ 21 ].

( iii )  Legislation allowing abortion on a socio-economic motivation . This category includes items such as the woman’s age or ability to care for a child, fetal problems, cases of rape or incest, etc. In this category are 13 countries, where we have 21.3% of the world population [ 21 ].

( iv )  Legislation which do not impose restrictions on abortion . In the case of this legislation, abortion is permitted for any reason up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions (Romania – 14 weeks, Slovenia – 10 weeks, Sweden – 18 weeks), the interruption of pregnancy after this period has some restrictions. This type of legislation is adopted in 61 countries with 39.5% of the world population [21].

The Centre for Reproductive Rights has carried out from 1998 a map of the world’s states, based on the legislation typology of each country (Figure ​ (Figure1 1 ).

The analysis of states according to the legislation regarding abortion. Source: Centre for Reproductive Rights. The World’s Abortion Laws, 2018 [ 23 ]

An unplanned pregnancy, socio-economic context or various medical problems [ 24 ], lead many times to the decision of interrupting pregnancy, regardless the legislative restrictions. In the study “Unsafe abortion: global and regional estimates of the incidence of unsafe abortion and associated mortality in 2008” issued in 2011 by the WHO , it was determined that within the states with restrictive legislation on abortion, we may also encounter a large number of illegal abortions. The illegal abortions may also be resulting in an increased risk of woman’s health and life considering that most of the times inappropriate techniques are being used, the hygienic conditions are precarious and the medical treatments are incorrectly administered [ 25 ]. Although abortions done according to medical guidelines carry very low risk of complications, 1–3 unsafe abortions contribute substantially to maternal morbidity and death worldwide [ 26 ].

WHO has estimated for the year 2008, the fact that worldwide women between the ages of 15 and 44 years carried out 21.6 million “unsafe” abortions, which involved a high degree of risk and were distributed as follows: 0.4 million in the developed regions and a number of 21.2 million in the states in course of development [ 25 ].

Case study: Romania

Legal perspective on abortion

In Romania, abortion was brought under regulation by the first Criminal Code of the United Principalities, from 1864.

The Criminal Code from 1864, provided the abortion infringement in Article 246, on which was regulated as follows: “Any person, who, using means such as food, drinks, pills or any other means, which will consciously help a pregnant woman to commit abortion, will be punished to a minimum reclusion (three years).

The woman who by herself shall use the means of abortion, or would accept to use means of abortion which were shown or given to her for this purpose, will be punished with imprisonment from six months to two years, if the result would be an abortion. In a situation where abortion was carried out on an illegitimate baby by his mother, the punishment will be imprisonment from six months to one year.

Doctors, surgeons, health officers, pharmacists (apothecary) and midwives who will indicate, will give or will facilitate these means, shall be punished with reclusion of at least four years, if the abortion took place. If abortion will cause the death of the mother, the punishment will be much austere of four years” (Art. 246) [ 27 ].

The Criminal Code from 1864, reissued in 1912, amended in part the Article 246 for the purposes of eliminating the abortion of an illegitimate baby case. Furthermore, it was no longer specified the minimum of four years of reclusion, in case of abortion carried out with the help of the medical staff, leaving the punishment to the discretion of the Court (Art. 246) [ 28 ].

The Criminal Code from 1936 regulated abortion in the Articles 482–485. Abortion was defined as an interruption of the normal course of pregnancy, being punished as follows:

“ 1 . When the crime is committed without the consent of the pregnant woman, the punishment was reformatory imprisonment from 2 to 5 years. If it caused the pregnant woman any health injury or a serious infirmity, the punishment was reformatory imprisonment from 3 to 6 years, and if it has caused her death, reformatory imprisonment from 7 to 10 years;

2 . When the crime was committed by the unmarried pregnant woman by herself, or when she agreed that someone else should provoke the abortion, the punishment is reformatory imprisonment from 3 to 6 months, and if the woman is married, the punishment is reformatory imprisonment from 6 months to one year. Same penalty applies also to the person who commits the crime with the woman’s consent. If abortion was committed for the purpose of obtaining a benefit, the punishment increases with another 2 years of reformatory imprisonment.

If it caused the pregnant woman any health injuries or a severe disablement, the punishment will be reformatory imprisonment from one to 3 years, and if it has caused her death, the punishment is reformatory imprisonment from 3 to 5 years” (Art. 482) [ 29 ].

The criminal legislation from 1936 specifies that it is not considered as an abortion the interruption from the normal course of pregnancy, if it was carried out by a doctor “when woman’s life was in imminent danger or when the pregnancy aggravates a woman’s disease, putting her life in danger, which could not be removed by other means and it is obvious that the intervention wasn’t performed with another purpose than that of saving the woman’s life” and “when one of the parents has reached a permanent alienation and it is certain that the child will bear serious mental flaws” (Art. 484, Par. 1 and Par. 2) [ 29 ].

In the event of an imminent danger, the doctor was obliged to notify prosecutor’s office in writing, within 48 hours after the intervention, on the performance of the abortion. “In the other cases, the doctor was able to intervene only with the authorization of the prosecutor’s office, given on the basis of a medical certificate from hospital or a notice given as a result of a consultation between the doctor who will intervene and at least a professor doctor in the disease which caused the intervention. General’s Office Prosecutor, in all cases provided by this Article, shall be obliged to maintain the confidentiality of all communications or authorizations, up to the intercession of any possible complaints” (Art. 484) [ 29 ].

The legislation of 1936 provided a reformatory injunction from one to three years for the abortions committed by doctors, sanitary agents, pharmacists, apothecary or midwives (Art. 485) [ 29 ].

Abortion on demand has been legalized for the first time in Romania in the year 1957 by the Decree No. 463, under the condition that it had to be carried out in a hospital and to be carried out in the first quarter of the pregnancy [ 30 ]. In the year 1966, demographic policy of Romania has dramatically changed by introducing the Decree No. 770 from September 29 th , which prohibited abortion. Thus, the voluntary interruption of pregnancy became a crime, with certain exceptions, namely: endangering the mother’s life, physical or mental serious disability; serious or heritable illness, mother’s age over 45 years, if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest or if the woman gave birth to at least four children who were still in her care (Art. 2) [ 31 ].

In the Criminal Code from 1968, the abortion crime was governed by Articles 185–188.

The Article 185, “the illegal induced abortion”, stipulated that “the interruption of pregnancy by any means, outside the conditions permitted by law, with the consent of the pregnant woman will be punished with imprisonment from one to 3 years”. The act referred to above, without the prior consent from the pregnant woman, was punished with prison from two to five years. If the abortion carried out with the consent of the pregnant woman caused any serious body injury, the punishment was imprisonment from two to five years, and when it caused the death of the woman, the prison sentence was from five to 10 years. When abortion was carried out without the prior consent of the woman, if it caused her a serious physical injury, the punishment was imprisonment from three to six years, and if it caused the woman’s death, the punishment was imprisonment from seven to 12 years (Art. 185) [ 32 ].

“When abortion was carried out in order to obtain a material benefit, the maximum punishment was increased by two years, and if the abortion was made by a doctor, in addition to the prison punishment could also be applied the prohibition to no longer practice the profession of doctor”.

Article 186, “abortion caused by the woman”, stipulated that “the interruption of the pregnancy course, committed by the pregnant woman, was punished with imprisonment from 6 months to 2 years”, quoting the fact that by the same punishment was also sanctioned “the pregnant woman’s act to consent in interrupting the pregnancy course made out by another person” (Art. 186) [ 26 ].

The Regulations of the Criminal Code in 1968, also provided the crime of “ownership of tools or materials that can cause abortion”, the conditions of this holding being met when these types of instruments were held outside the hospital’s specialized institutions, the infringement shall be punished with imprisonment from three months to one year (Art. 187) [ 32 ].

Furthermore, the doctors who performed an abortion in the event of extreme urgency, without prior legal authorization and if they did not announce the competent authority within the legal deadline, they were punished by imprisonment from one month to three months (Art. 188) [ 32 ].

In the year 1985, it has been issued the Decree No. 411 of December 26 th , by which the conditions imposed by the Decree No. 770 of 1966 have been hardened, meaning that it has increased the number of children, that a woman could have in order to request an abortion, from four to five children [ 33 ].

The Articles 185–188 of the Criminal Code and the Decree No. 770/1966 on the interruption of the pregnancy course have been abrogated by Decree-Law No. 1 from December 26 th , 1989, which was published in the Official Gazette No. 4 of December 27 th , 1989 (Par. 8 and Par. 12) [ 34 ].

The Criminal Code from 1968, reissued in 1997, maintained Article 185 about “the illegal induced abortion”, but drastically modified. Thus, in this case of the Criminal Code, we identify abortion as “the interruption of pregnancy course, by any means, committed in any of the following circumstances: ( a ) outside medical institutions or authorized medical practices for this purpose; ( b ) by a person who does not have the capacity of specialized doctor; ( c ) if age pregnancy has exceeded 14 weeks”, the punishment laid down was the imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years” (Art. 185, Par. 1) [ 35 ]. For the abortion committed without the prior consent of the pregnant woman, the punishment consisted in strict prison conditions from two to seven years and with the prohibition of certain rights (Art. 185, Par. 2) [ 35 ].

For the situation of causing serious physical injury to the pregnant woman, the punishment was strict prison from three to 10 years and the removal of certain rights, and if it had as a result the death of the pregnant woman, the punishment was strict prison from five to 15 years and the prohibition of certain rights (Art. 185, Par. 3) [ 35 ].

The attempt was punished for the crimes specified in the various cases of abortion.

Consideration should also be given in the Criminal Code reissued in 1997 for not punishing the interruption of the pregnancy course carried out by the doctor, if this interruption “was necessary to save the life, health or the physical integrity of the pregnant woman from a grave and imminent danger and that it could not be removed otherwise; in the case of a over fourteen weeks pregnancy, when the interruption of the pregnancy course should take place from therapeutic reasons” and even in a situation of a woman’s lack of consent, when it has not been given the opportunity to express her will, and abortion “was imposed by therapeutic reasons” (Art. 185, Par. 4) [ 35 ].

Criminal Code from 2004 covers abortion in Article 190, defined in the same way as in the prior Criminal Code, with the difference that it affects the limits of the punishment. So, in the event of pregnancy interruption, in accordance with the conditions specified in Paragraph 1, “the penalty provided was prison time from 6 months to one year or days-fine” (Art. 190, Par. 1) [ 36 ].

Nowadays, in Romania, abortion is governed by the criminal law of 2009, which entered into force in 2014, by the section called “aggression against an unborn child”. It should be specified that current criminal law does not punish the woman responsible for carrying out abortion, but only the person who is involved in carrying out the abortion. There is no punishment for the pregnant woman who injures her fetus during pregnancy.

In Article 201, we can find the details on the pregnancy interruption infringement. Thus, the pregnancy interruption can be performed in one of the following circumstances: “outside of medical institutions or medical practices authorized for this purpose; by a person who does not have the capacity of specialist doctor in Obstetrics and Gynecology and the right of free medical practice in this specialty; if gestational age has exceeded 14 weeks”, the punishment is the imprisonment for six months to three years, or fine and the prohibition to exercise certain rights (Art. 201, Par. 1) [ 37 ].

Article 201, Paragraph 2 specifies that “the interruption of the pregnancy committed under any circumstances, without the prior consent of the pregnant woman, can be punished with imprisonment from 2 to 7 years and with the prohibition to exercise some rights” (Art. 201, Par. 1) [ 37 ].

If by facts referred to above (Art. 201, Par. 1 and Par. 2) [ 37 ] “it has caused the pregnant woman’s physical injury, the punishment is the imprisonment from 3 to 10 years and the prohibition to exercise some rights, and if it has had as a result the pregnant woman’s death, the punishment is the imprisonment from 6 to 12 years and the prohibition to exercise some rights” (Art. 201, Par. 3) [ 37 ]. When the facts have been committed by a doctor, “in addition to the imprisonment punishment, it will also be applied the prohibition to exercise the profession of doctor (Art. 201, Par. 4) [ 37 ].

Criminal legislation specifies that “the interruption of pregnancy does not constitute an infringement with the purpose of a treatment carried out by a specialist doctor in Obstetrics and Gynecology, until the pregnancy age of twenty-four weeks is reached, or the subsequent pregnancy interruption, for the purpose of treatment, is in the interests of the mother or the fetus” (Art. 201, Par. 6) [ 37 ]. However, it can all be found in the phrases “therapeutic purposes” and “the interest of the mother and of the unborn child”, which predisposes the text of law to an interpretation, finally the doctors are the only ones in the position to decide what should be done in such cases, assuming direct responsibility [ 38 ].

Article 202 of the Criminal Code defines the crime of harming an unborn child, pointing out the punishments for the various types of injuries that can occur during pregnancy or in the childbirth period and which can be caused by the mother or by the persons who assist the birth, with the specification that the mother who harms her fetus during pregnancy is not punished and does not constitute an infringement if the injury has been committed during pregnancy or during childbirth period if the facts have been “committed by a doctor or by an authorized person to assist the birth or to follow the pregnancy, if they have been committed in the course of the medical act, complying with the specific provisions of his profession and have been made in the interest of the pregnant woman or fetus, as a result of the exercise of an inherent risk in the medical act” (Art. 202, Par. 6) [ 37 ].

The fact situation in Romania

During the period 1948–1955, called “the small baby boom” [ 39 ], Romania registered an average fertility rate of 3.23 children for a woman. Between 1955 and 1962, the fertility rate has been less than three children for a woman, and in 1962, fertility has reached an average of two children for a woman. This phenomenon occurred because of the Decree No. 463/1957 on liberalization of abortion. After the liberalization from 1957, the abortion rate has increased from 220 abortions per 100 born-alive children in the year 1960, to 400 abortions per 100 born-alive children, in the year 1965 [ 40 ].

The application of provisions of Decrees No. 770 of 1966 and No. 411 of 1985 has led to an increase of the birth rate in the first three years (an average of 3.7 children in 1967, and 3.6 children in 1968), followed by a regression until 1989, when it was recorded an average of 2.2 children, but also a maternal death rate caused by illegal abortions, raising up to 85 deaths of 100 000 births in the year of 1965, and 170 deaths in 1983. It was estimated that more than 80% of maternal deaths between 1980–1989 was caused by legal constraints [ 30 ].

After the Romanian Revolution in December 1989 and after the communism fall, with the abrogation of Articles 185–188 of the Criminal Code and of the Decree No. 770/1966, by the Decree of Law No. 1 of December 26 th , 1989, abortion has become legal in Romania and so, in the following years, it has reached the highest rate of abortion in Europe. Subsequently, the number of abortion has dropped gradually, with increasing use of birth control [ 41 ].

Statistical data issued by the Ministry of Health and by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) in Romania show corresponding figures to a legally carried out abortion. The abortion number is much higher, if it would take into account the number of illegal abortion, especially those carried out before 1989, and those carried out in private clinics, after the year 1990. Summing the declared abortions in the period 1958–2014, it is to be noted the number of them, 22 037 747 exceeds the current Romanian population. A detailed statistical research of abortion rate, in terms of years we have exposed in Table ​ Table1 1 .

The number of abortions declared in Romania in the period 1958–2016

Source: Pro Vita Association (Bucharest, Romania), National Institute of Statistics (INS – Romania), EUROSTAT [ 42 , 43 , 44 ]

Data issued by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in June 2016, for the period 1989–2014, in matters of reproductive behavior, indicates a fertility rate for Romania with a continuous decrease, in proportion to the decrease of the number of births, but also a lower number of abortion rate reported to 100 deliveries (Table ​ (Table2 2 ).

Reproductive behavior in Romania in 1989–2014

Source: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Transformative Monitoring for Enhanced Equity (TransMonEE) Data. Country profiles: Romania, 1989–2015 [ 45 ].

By analyzing data issued for the period 1990–2015 by the International Organization of Health , UNICEF , United Nations Fund for Population Activity (UNFPA), The World Bank and the United Nations Population Division, it is noticed that maternal mortality rate has currently dropped as compared with 1990 (Table ​ (Table3 3 ).

Maternal mortality estimation in Romania in 1990–2015

Source: World Health Organization (WHO), Global Health Observatory Data. Maternal mortality country profiles: Romania, 2015 [ 46 ].

Opinion survey: women’s opinion on abortion

Argument for choosing the research theme

Although the problematic on abortion in Romania has been extensively investigated and debated, it has not been carried out in an ample sociological study, covering Romanian women’s perception on abortion. We have assumed making a study at national level, in order to identify the opinion on abortion, on the motivation to carry out an abortion, and to identify the correlation between religious convictions and the attitude toward abortion.

Examining the literature field of study

In the conceptual register of the research, we have highlighted items, such as the specialized literature, legislation, statistical documents.

Formulation of hypotheses and objectives

The first hypothesis was that Romanian women accept abortion, having an open attitude towards this act. Thus, the first objective of the research was to identify Romanian women’s attitude towards abortion.

The second hypothesis, from which we started, was that high religious beliefs generate a lower tolerance towards abortion. Thus, the second objective of our research has been to identify the correlation between the religious beliefs and the attitude towards abortion.

The third hypothesis of the survey was that, the main motivation in carrying out an abortion is the fact that a woman does not want a baby, and the main motivation for keeping the pregnancy is that the person wants a baby. In this context, the third objective of the research was to identify main motivation in carrying out an abortion and in maintaining a pregnancy.

Another hypothesis was that modern Romanian legislation on the abortion is considered fair. Based on this hypothesis, we have assumed the fourth objective, which is to identify the degree of satisfaction towards the current regulatory provisions governing the abortion.

Research methodology

The research method is that of a sociological survey by the application of the questionnaire technique. We used the sampling by age and residence looking at representative numbers of population from more developed as well as underdeveloped areas.

Determination of the sample to be studied

Because abortion is a typical women’s experience, we have chosen to make the quantitative research only among women. We have constructed the sample by selecting a number of 1260 women between the ages of 15 and 44 years (the most frequently encountered age among women who give birth to a child). We also used the quota sampling techniques, taking into account the following variables: age group and the residence (urban/rural), so that the persons included in the sample could retain characteristic of the general population.

By the sample of 1260 women, we have made a percentage of investigation of 0.03% of the total population.

The Questionnaires number applied was distributed as follows (Table ​ (Table4 4 ).

The sampling rates based on the age, and the region of residence

Source: Sample built, based on the population data issued by the National Institute of Statistics (INS – Romania) based on population census conducted in 2011 [ 47 ].

Data collection

Data collection was carried out by questionnaires administered by 32 field operators between May 1 st –May 31 st , 2018.

The analysis of the research results

In the next section, we will present the main results of the quantitative research carried out at national level.

Almost three-quarters of women included in the sample agree with carrying out an abortion in certain circumstances (70%) and only 24% have chosen to support the answer “ No, never ”. In modern contemporary society, abortion is the first solution of women for which a pregnancy is not desired. Even if advanced medical techniques are a lot safer, an abortion still carries a health risk. However, 6% of respondents agree with carrying out abortion regardless of circumstances (Table ​ (Table5 5 ).

Opinion on the possibility of carrying out an abortion

Although abortions carried out after 14 weeks are illegal, except for medical reasons, more than half of the surveyed women stated they would agree with abortion in certain circumstances. At the opposite pole, 31% have mentioned they would never agree on abortions after 14 weeks. Five percent were totally accepting the idea of abortion made to a pregnancy that has exceeded 14 weeks (Table ​ (Table6 6 ).

Opinion on the possibility of carrying out an abortion after the period of 14 weeks of pregnancy

For 53% of respondents, abortion is considered a crime as well as the right of a women. On the other hand, 28% of the women considered abortion as a crime and 16% associate abortion with a woman’s right (Table ​ (Table7 7 ).

Opinion on abortion: at the border between crime and a woman’s right

Opinions on what women abort at the time of the voluntary pregnancy interruption are split in two: 59% consider that it depends on the time of the abortion, and more specifically on the pregnancy development stage, 24% consider that regardless of the period in which it is carried out, women abort a child, and 14% have opted a fetus (Table ​ (Table8 8 ).

Abortion of a child vs. abortion of a fetus

Among respondents who consider that women abort a child or a fetus related to the time of abortion, 37.5% have considered that the difference between a baby and a fetus appears after 14 weeks of pregnancy (the period legally accepted for abortion). Thirty-three percent of them have mentioned that the distinction should be performed at the first few heartbeats; 18.1% think it is about when the child has all the features definitively outlined and can move by himself; 2.8% consider that the difference appears when the first encephalopathy traces are being felt and the child has formed all internal and external organs. A percentage of 1.7% of respondents consider that this difference occurs at the beginning of the central nervous system, and 1.4% when the unborn child has all the features that we can clearly see to a newborn child (Table ​ (Table9 9 ).

The opinion on the moment that makes the difference between a fetus and a child

We noticed that highly religious people make a clear association between abortion and crime. They also consider that at the time of pregnancy interruption it is aborted a child and not a fetus. However, unexpectedly, we noticed that 27% of the women, who declare themselves to be very religious, have also stated that they see abortion as a crime but also as a woman’s right. Thirty-one percent of the women, who also claimed profound religious beliefs, consider that abortion may be associated with the abortion of a child but also of a fetus, this depending on the time of abortion (Tables ​ (Tables10 10 and ​ and11 11 ).

The correlation between the level of religious beliefs and the perspective on abortion seen as a crime or a right

The correlation between the level of religious beliefs and the perspective on abortion procedure conducted on a fetus or a child

More than half of the respondents have opted for the main reason for abortion the appearance of medical problems to the child. Baby’s health represents the main concern of future mothers, and of each parent, and the birth of a child with serious health issues, is a factor which frightens any future parent, being many times, at least theoretically, one good reason for opting for abortion. At the opposite side, 12% of respondents would not choose abortion under any circumstances. Other reasons for which women would opt for an abortion are: if the woman would have a medical problem (22%) or would not want the child (10%) (Table ​ (Table12 12 ).

Potential reasons for carrying out an abortion

Most of the women want to give birth to a child, 56% of the respondents, representing also the reason that would determine them to keep the child. Morality (26%), faith (10%) or legal restrictions (4%), are the three other reasons for which women would not interrupt a pregnancy. Only 2% of the respondents have mentioned other reasons such as health or age.

A percentage of 23% of the surveyed people said that they have done an abortion so far, and 77% did not opted for a surgical intervention either because there was no need, or because they have kept the pregnancy (Table ​ (Table13 13 ).

Rate of abortion among women in the sample

Most respondents, 87% specified that they have carried out an abortion during the first 14 weeks – legally accepted limit for abortion: 43.6% have made abortion in the first four weeks, 39.1% between weeks 4–8, and 4.3% between weeks 8–14. It should be noted that 8.7% could not appreciate the pregnancy period in which they carried out abortion, by opting to answer with the option “ I don’t know ”, and a percentage of 4.3% refused to answer to this question.

Performing an abortion is based on many reasons, but the fact that the women have not wanted a child is the main reason mentioned by 47.8% of people surveyed, who have done minimum an abortion so far. Among the reasons for the interruption of pregnancy, it is also included: women with medical problems (13.3%), not the right time to be a mother (10.7%), age motivation (8.7%), due to medical problems of the child (4.3%), the lack of money (4.3%), family pressure (4.3%), partner/spouse did not wanted. A percentage of 3.3% of women had different reasons for abortion, as follows: age difference too large between children, career, marital status, etc. Asked later whether they regretted the abortion, a rate of 69.6% of women who said they had at least one abortion regret it (34.8% opted for “ Yes ”, and 34.8% said “ Yes, partially ”). 26.1% of surveyed women do not regret the choice to interrupted the pregnancy, and 4.3% chose to not answer this question. We noted that, for women who have already experienced abortion, the causes were more diverse than the grounds on which the previous question was asked: “What are the reasons that determined you to have an abortion?” (Table ​ (Table14 14 ).

The reasons that led the women in the sample to have an abortion

The majority of the respondents (37.5%) considered that “nervous depression” is the main consequence of abortion, followed by “insomnia and nightmares” (24.6%), “disorders in alimentation” and “affective disorders” (each for 7.7% of respondents), “deterioration of interpersonal relationships” and “the feeling of guilt”(for 6.3% of the respondents), “sexual disorders” and “panic attacks” (for 6.3% of the respondents) (Table ​ (Table15 15 ).

Opinion on the consequences of abortion

Over half of the respondents believe that abortion should be legal in certain circumstances, as currently provided by law, 39% say it should be always legal, and only 6% opted for the illegal option (Table ​ (Table16 16 ).

Opinion on the legal regulation of abortion

Although the current legislation does not punish pregnant women who interrupt pregnancy or intentionally injured their fetus, survey results indicate that 61% of women surveyed believe that the national law should punish the woman and only 28% agree with the current legislation (Table ​ (Table17 17 ).

Opinion on the possibility of punishing the woman who interrupts the course of pregnancy or injures the fetus

For the majority of the respondents (40.6%), the penalty provided by the current legislation, the imprisonment between six months and three years or a fine and deprivation of certain rights for the illegal abortion is considered fair, for a percentage of 39.6% the punishment is too small for 9.5% of the respondents is too high. Imprisonment between two and seven years and deprivation of certain rights for an abortion performed without the consent of the pregnant woman is considered too small for 65% of interviewees. Fourteen percent of them think it is fair and only 19% of respondents consider that Romanian legislation is too severe with people who commit such an act considering the punishment as too much. The imprisonment from three to 10 years and deprivation of certain rights for the facts described above, if an injury was caused to the woman, is considered to be too small for more than half of those included in the survey, 64% and almost 22% for nearly a quarter of them. Only 9% of the respondents mentioned that this legislative measure is too severe for such actions (Table ​ (Table18 18 ).

Opinion on the regulation of abortion of the Romanian Criminal Code (Art. 201)

Conclusions

After analyzing the results of the sociological research regarding abortion undertaken at national level, we see that 76% of the Romanian women accept abortion, indicating that the majority accepts only certain circumstances (a certain period after conception, for medical reasons, etc.). A percentage of 64% of the respondents indicated that they accept the idea of abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy (for solid reasons or regardless the reason). This study shows that over 50% of Romanian women see abortion as a right of women but also a woman’s crime and believe that in the moment of interruption of a pregnancy, a fetus is aborted. Mostly, the association of abortion with crime and with the idea that a child is aborted is frequently found within very religious people. The main motivation for Romanian women in taking the decision not to perform an abortion is that they would want the child, and the main reason to perform an abortion is the child’s medical problems. However, it is noted that, in real situations, in which women have already done at least one abortion, most women resort to abortion because they did not want the child towards the hypothetical situation in which women felt that the main reason of abortion is a medical problem. Regarding the satisfaction with the current national legislation of the abortion, the situation is rather surprising. A significant percentage (61%) of respondents felt as necessary to punish the woman who performs an illegal abortion, although the legislation does not provide a punishment. On the other hand, satisfaction level to the penalties provided by law for various violations of the legal conditions for conducting abortion is low, on average only 25.5% of respondents are being satisfied with these, the majority (average 56.2%) considering the penalties as unsatisfactory. Understood as a social phenomenon, intensified by human vulnerabilities, of which the most obvious is accepting the comfort [ 48 ], abortion today is no longer, in Romanian society, from a legal or religious perspective, a problem. Perceptions on the legislative sanction, moral and religious will perpetual vary depending on beliefs, environment, education, etc. The only and the biggest social problem of Romania is truly represented by the steadily falling birth rate.

Conflict of interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

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The Teen Trend of Sexual Choking

More from our inbox:, emergency abortions and the supreme court, our father, who led columbia, would be saddened today, hiring discrimination, trump’s own ‘fake news’.

To the Editor:

Re “ Why We Need to Talk About Teen Sex ,” by Peggy Orenstein (Opinion guest essay, April 14):

As a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst who has worked for decades with teens and college-age students, I’m disturbed but not surprised by the trend of choking during sex.

Choking is obviously very dangerous, and unfortunately, social media has made this once uncommon practice more mainstream.

Education is the key with both our youth and parents. Yes, sexual strangulation needs to be part of ongoing conversations about safe sex practices. There clearly needs to be more accountability about this behavior.

There is a line, a boundary, where rough sex, whether it’s consensual or not, crosses into danger, causing devastating long-term effects for participants.

Arden Greenspan Goldberg San Diego

While reading this essay, I was reminded of how feminist writers and activists waved warning flags about the pernicious effects of pornography on women back in the 1970s and ’80s. They published books and essays on the subject, marched in demonstrations and spoke out in the media. They were continually derided as prudes and censors.

Decades later, with violent porn pervasive online and a generation of young women subjected to the sadistic sexual violence normalized by porn, it turns out those prudes and censors were actually Cassandras.

I thank Peggy Orenstein and the researchers in this story for bringing new attention to the issue.

J. Jamakaya Milwaukee

I taught a course on human sexuality to college students during the AIDS epidemic. When I heard about sexual strangulation, I considered briefly: Should I link this practice to arousal and orgasm when speaking to these high-risk young people? I knew that many would then experiment. I chose not to mention it, but I taught them, through role play, how to verbally refuse inappropriate sexual invitations.

Today, I hope instructors in my position will discuss with their students sexual strangulation with a potential partner and help them practice responding to sexual pressure.

Pornography makes partners look willing. Evolution favored a strong sex drive. The planet doesn’t need it anymore.

Elizabeth Powell St. Louis The writer is the author of “Talking Back to Sexual Pressure.”

Re “ 5 Takeaways From the Supreme Court Arguments on Idaho’s Abortion Ban ” (nytimes.com, April 24):

Reading about the hearing at the Supreme Court, I was taken aback at the careful attention some justices paid to ensuring that physicians whose conscience precludes them from performing abortions are excused from violating their beliefs. But some doctors are being forced to violate their conscience by being prevented from performing an abortion on patients whose precarious condition might decline precipitously without such a procedure.

Being forced to refuse medically indicated aid, knowing that the dire consequences violate the Hippocratic oath to do no harm, is an affront to their consciences, which must be considered with the same attention.

Susan Swartz Philadelphia

Re “ On Emergency Abortion Access, Justices Seem Sharply Divided ” (nytimes.com, April 24):

You write that since the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, uncertainty about the parameters for legal abortion in several states has led to complaints about doctors being forced to “think like lawyers.”

I am equally concerned that complex medical decisions are being made by nine lawyers being forced to think like doctors.

Jon D. Morrow New York The writer is an obstetrician-gynecologist.

Our father, Michael I. Sovern , played a leading role in resolving Columbia’s 1968 protests. He served as Columbia’s only Jewish president, from 1980 to 1993, and helped negotiate a peaceful end to weeks of anti-apartheid demonstrations.

We cannot know what our father, who died in 2020, would do if he were still president, but we have no doubt he would be deeply saddened by what is happening at the university that he loved and served for more than 60 years.

We believe that he would not want politicians and outsiders not affiliated with Columbia to exploit sincere student protest for their own gains, and, as in the 1980s, he would want protesters to ensure that they do not keep the university from providing the excellent education from which he and so many others benefited.

Finally, we know he would agree that anyone expressing opposition to the Israeli government or Hamas should not make Jewish or Palestinian students feel attacked or unsafe.

Jeff Sovern Elizabeth Sovern Doug Sovern Julie Sovern

Re “ Study Uses Fake Résumés to Measure Bias in Hiring ” (The Upshot, April 15):

The study on hiring discrimination in large U.S. companies, as reported in your story, highlights the importance of social capital in landing a job, especially for people of color.

The study found that even with equivalent qualifications, applicants with Black-sounding names were contacted by employers nearly 10 percent less often than those with white-sounding names.

In a world where such discriminatory hiring practices persist, the ability to build social capital — the relationships and networks that help open doors and advance someone in their career and life pursuits — is paramount.

Research shows that social capital — and in particular, cross-class relationships — is the greatest predictor of economic mobility. Educational institutions, from high schools to community colleges and trade schools, should prioritize helping students build social capital.

By teaching them how to build relationships, facilitating connections with industry professionals, creating mentorship programs that pair students with successful alumni, and, most important, teaching students how to make meaningful requests of those alumni, we can put more people on the path to successful careers.

Because opportunity should hinge on merit, not a name.

Nitzan Pelman Berkeley, Calif. The writer is C.E.O. of Climb Hire Labs, a national nonprofit teaching students and job seekers the art of building social capital.

Re “ Witness Recalls Burying Stories to Shield Trump ” (front page, April 24):

Finally, we have a rather compelling example of that “fake news” that Donald Trump has been ranting about for years.

He not only sought to bury damaging stories. It turns out that he and his fixer, Michael Cohen, working closely with David Pecker, the publisher of The National Enquirer, also concocted and released wholly untrue stories about his political opponents (for example, “Donald Trump Blasts Ted Cruz’s Dad for Photo With J.F.K. Assassin”). So says Mr. Pecker, under oath, in a Manhattan courtroom.

James P. Pehl Marlborough, Mass.

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The Last Thing This Supreme Court Could Do to Shock Us

There will be no more self-soothing after this..

For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts , the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.

On Thursday, during oral arguments in Trump v. United States , the Republican-appointed justices shattered those illusions. This was the case we had been waiting for, and all was made clear—brutally so. These justices donned the attitude of cynical partisans, repeatedly lending legitimacy to the former president’s outrageous claims of immunity from criminal prosecution. To at least five of the conservatives, the real threat to democracy wasn’t Trump’s attempt to overturn the election—but the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute him for the act. These justices fear that it is Trump’s prosecution for election subversion that will “destabilize” democracy, requiring them to read a brand-new principle of presidential immunity into a Constitution that guarantees nothing of the sort. They evinced virtually no concern for our ability to continue holding free and fair elections that culminate in a peaceful transfer of power. They instead offered endless solicitude for the former president who fought that transfer of power.

However the court disposes of Trump v. U.S. , the result will almost certainly be precisely what the former president craves: more delays, more hearings, more appeals—more of everything but justice . This was not a legitimate claim from the start, but a wild attempt by Trump’s attorneys to use his former role as chief executive of the United States to shield himself from the consequences of trying to turn the presidency into a dictatorship. After so much speculation that these reasonable, rational jurists would surely dispose of this ridiculous case quickly and easily, Thursday delivered a morass of bad-faith hand-wringing on the right about the apparently unbearable possibility that a president might no longer be allowed to wield his powers of office in pursuit of illegal ends. Just as bad, we heard a constant minimization of Jan. 6, for the second week in a row , as if the insurrection were ancient history, and history that has since been dramatically overblown, presumably for Democrats’ partisan aims.

We got an early taste of this minimization in Trump v. Anderson , the Colorado case about removing Trump from the ballot. The court didn’t have the stomach to discuss the violence at the Capitol in its sharply divided decision, which found for Trump ; indeed, the majority barely mentioned the events of Jan. 6 at all when rejecting Colorado’s effort to bar from the ballot an insurrectionist who tried to steal our democracy. But we let that one be, because we figured special counsel Jack Smith would ride to the rescue. Smith has indicted Trump on election subversion charges related to Jan. 6, and the biggest obstacle standing between the special counsel and a trial has been the former president’s outlandish claim that he has absolute immunity from criminal charges as a result of his having been president at the time. Specifically, Trump alleges that his crusade to overturn the election constituted “official acts” that are immune from criminal liability under a heretofore unknown constitutional principle that the chief executive is quite literally above the law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held in February that the president does not have blanket or absolute immunity for all actions taken in office, including “official” acts performed under the guise of executing the law (for example, Trump’s attempt to weaponize the DOJ against election results under the pretense of investigating fraud). The D.C. Circuit’s emphatic, cross-ideological decision should have been summarily affirmed by SCOTUS within days. Instead, the justices set it for arguments two months down the road—a bad omen, to put it mildly . Even then, many court watchers held out hope that Thursday morning’s oral arguments were to be the moment for the nine justices of the Supreme Court to finally indicate their readiness to take on Trump, Trumpism, illiberalism, and slouching fascism.

It was not to be. Justice Samuel Alito best captured the spirit of arguments when he asked gravely “what is required for the functioning of a stable democratic society” (good start!), then answered his own question: total immunity for criminal presidents (oh, dear). Indeed, anything but immunity would, he suggested, encourage presidents to commit more crimes to stay in office: “Now, if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?” Never mind that the president in question did not leave office peacefully and is not sitting quietly in retirement but is instead running for presidential office once again. No, if we want criminal presidents to leave office when they lose, we have to let them commit crimes scot-free. If ever a better articulation of the legal principle “Don’t make me hit you again” has been proffered at an oral argument, it’s hard to imagine it.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke to this absurdity when she responded in what could only be heard as a cri de coeur: “Stable democratic society needs good faith of public officials,” she said. “That good faith assumes that they will follow the law.” The justice noted that despite all the protections in place, a democracy can sometimes “potentially fail.” She concluded: “In the end, if it fails completely, it’s because we destroyed our democracy on our own, isn’t it?”

But it was probably too late to make this plea, because by that point we had heard both Alito and Gorsuch opine that presidents must be protected at all costs from the whims of overzealous deep state prosecutors brandishing “vague” criminal statutes. We heard Kavanaugh opine mindlessly on the independent counsel statute and how mean it is to presidents, reading extensively from Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in a case arguing that independent counsels are unconstitutional. (Yes, Kavanaugh worked for Ken Starr , the independent counsel.) If you’re clocking a trend here, it’s gender. Just as was the case in Anderson , it’s the women justices doing the second-shift work here: both probing the thorny constitutional and criminal questions and signaling a refusal to tank democracy over abstractions and deflections. As was the case in the EMTALA arguments, it’s the women who understand what it looks like to cheat death.

Is the president, Sotomayor asked, immune from prosecution if he orders the military to assassinate a political rival? Yes, said John Sauer, who represented Trump—though it “depends on the circumstances.” Could the president, Justice Elena Kagan asked, order the military to stage a coup? Yes, Sauer said again, depending on the circumstances. To which Kagan tartly replied that Sauer’s insistence on specifying the “circumstances” boiled down to “Under my test, it’s an official act, but that sure sounds bad, doesn’t it?” (Cue polite laughter in the chamber.)

This shameless, maximalist approach should have drawn anger from the conservative justices—indignation, at least, that Sauer took them for such easy marks. But it turns out that he calibrated his terrible arguments just right. The cynicism on display was truly breathtaking: Alito winkingly implied to Michael Dreeben, representing Smith, that we all know that Justice Department lawyers are political hacks, right? Roberts mocked Dreeben for saying “There’s no reason to worry because the prosecutor will act in good faith.”

The conservative justices are so in love with their own voices and so convinced of their own rectitude that they monologued about how improper it was for Dreeben to keep talking about the facts of this case, as opposed to the “abstract” principles at play. “I’m talking about the future!” Kavanaugh declared at one point to Dreeben, pitching himself not as Trump’s human shield but as a principled defender of the treasured constitutional right of all presidents to do crime. (We’re sure whatever rule he cooks up will apply equally to Democratic presidents, right?) Kavanaugh eventually landed on the proposition that prosecutors may charge presidents only under criminal statutes that explicitly state they can be applied to the president. Which, as Sotomayor pointed out, would mean no charges everywhere, because just a tiny handful of statutes are stamped with the label “CAN BE APPLIED TO PRESIDENT.”

The words bold and fearless action were repeated on a loop today, as a kind of mantra of how effective presidents must be free to act quickly and decisively to save democracy from the many unanticipated threats it faces. And yet the court—which has been asked to take bold and fearless action to deter the person who called Georgia’s secretary of state to demand that he alter the vote count, and threatened to fire DOJ officials who would not help steal an election—is backing away from its own duty. The prospect of a criminal trial for a criminal president shocked and appalled five men: Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch suggested that Smith’s entire prosecution is unconstitutional; meanwhile, Roberts sounded eager at times to handle the case just a hair more gracefully: by cutting out its heart by preventing the jury from hearing about “official acts” (which lie at the center of the alleged conspiracy). Justice Amy Coney Barrett was far more measured, teasing out a compromise with Dreeben that would compel the trial court to tell the jury it could not impose criminal liability for these “official” acts, only “private ones.” Remember, drawing that line would require months of hearings and appeals, pushing any trial into 2025 or beyond. The president who tried to steal the most recent election is running in the next one, which is happening in mere months.

The liberal justices tried their best to make the case that justice required denying Trump’s sweeping immunity claim, permitting the trial to move forward, and sorting out lingering constitutional issues afterward, as virtually all other criminal defendants must do. They got little traction. Everyone on that bench was well aware that the entire nation was listening to arguments; that the whole nation wants to understand whether Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election was an existential threat to democracy or a lark. Five justices sent the message, loud and clear, that they are far more worried about Trump’s prosecution at the hands of the deep-state DOJ than about his alleged crimes, which were barely mentioned. This trial will almost certainly face yet more delays. These delays might mean that its subject could win back the presidency in the meantime and render the trial moot. But the court has now signaled that nothing he did was all that serious and that the danger he may pose is not worth reining in. The real threats they see are the ones Trump himself shouts from the rooftops: witch hunts and partisan Biden prosecutors. These men have picked their team. The rest hardly matters.