Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, abortion advocates have been insisting that pro-life laws threaten women’s health. Yet Planned Parenthood’s own website has already debunked many of these arguments, explaining that treatments for medical conditions such as ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages aren’t abortions.
Then Planned Parenthood changed its website in mid-July, promoting a false narrative that proves many in the abortion industry care more about advancing a political agenda than about women’s health.
In July abortion advocates argued at a congressional hearing, in which I testified on the other side, that laws protecting the unborn threaten women’s health by preventing physicians from offering common pregnancy treatments. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.) suggested that the treatment for an ectopic pregnancy was the same thing as an abortion. Witnesses said that women would be unable to access lifesaving medical treatment in cases of emergency.
Yet Planned Parenthood’s own website used to say, “Treating an ectopic pregnancy isn’t the same thing as an abortion.” After abortion advocates insisted that post-Roe pro-life laws might interfere with treatments for ectopic pregnancy, Planned Parenthood altered its medical definition to fit the narrative. Today, its website says: “The medical procedures for terminating a pregnancy in the uterus are usually different from medical procedures for terminating an ectopic pregnancy.”
Planned Parenthood was right the first time. Legally, abortion is the intentional termination of a human life. The treatment for an ectopic pregnancy isn’t an abortion because its purpose isn’t to end a human life. Similarly, every state provides that lifesaving treatment for a pregnant woman isn’t an abortion. When these tragic circumstances occur, a physician does everything possible to ensure the survival of both the mother and the baby.
The argument that physicians might refuse lifesaving medical care due to fear of prosecution is a red herring. Physicians who provide emergency medical care to a pregnant woman, or who treat an ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage, don’t violate any state abortion law. Many states, such as Mississippi, leave the question of lifesaving necessity up to the physician’s good-faith judgment. Further, while only a fraction of OB-GYNs perform abortions, procedures to treat ectopic pregnancy…
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