What’s Wrong With a 20-Week Abortion Ban?
The Texas House today passed the abortion restriction bill that State Senator Wendy Davis derailed last month.
One provision would move the point at which abortions are no longer legal to 20 weeks from 24 weeks. Another would require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and allow abortions to take place only in surgical centers.
The Catholic Association’s press release celebrating progress on the bill said it merely “seeks to raise standards for women’s health and limits the inhumane and heart-breaking practice of late-term abortion.”
So what’s the big deal?
Let’s start with the question of timing.
The way the Catholic Association mentions “late-term” abortions, you might think the only women who had them were lazy and callous, just waiting around until the last second for no good reason.
But as Cecile Richards, the head of Planned Parenthood, told me in an email, nearly 99 percent of abortions occur before 21 weeks; abortions later on often involve rare, severe fetal abnormalities and real threats to a woman’s health. In many cases, women are facing the need to terminate a desired pregnancy, not an unwanted one.
Ms. Richards cited the case of a woman in Nebraska, Danielle Deaver, whose water broke at 22 weeks, depriving her baby of most of the amniotic fluid. “Her doctor told her that the fetus could not develop or survive,” Ms. Richards said. “Despite this, she was forced to live through 10 excruciating days waiting to give birth, because her doctors feared prosecution under her state’s 20-week abortion ban.”
Medical associations oppose these laws, because they are dangerous to the health of women.