Politicians and a certain group of people have categorized abortions, especially late term abortions, as being the callous, irresponsible choice of selfish, heartless mothers.  Nothing could be further from the truth. When a woman is in her third trimester of pregnancy, she is excitedly getting ready for her baby to arrive. She is full of eager anticipation and likely has chosen a name. She probably doodles the baby’s name everywhere, pairing it with middle name contenders. If a nursery isn’t already set up, furniture has been chosen and car seats have been researched. It’s a happy time.

But then something terrible happens. Either the mom becomes severely ill and requires medication which would terminate her pregnancy, or the baby is unwell. Perhaps the mother becomes sick with aggressive cancer which can’t wait another three months to be treated. The mother will die without chemotherapy and radiation treatment which will kill the fetus. The mother has a husband and two other children who she needs to live for. She chooses to fight the cancer, thereby terminating her pregnancy. In another horrible scenario, the mother’s autoimmune disease flares up. attacking her vital organs and rejecting the baby. The autoimmune disease will kill both the mother and the baby if the pregnancy isn’t terminated. Either way, the baby will die. 

A mother feels that her baby isn’t as active as usual in her womb. A sonogram shows that the baby has a severe birth defect which can’t be corrected. If brought to term, the baby will live a brief life wracked with excruciating pain before he dies. The parents are forced to make an agonizing choice and are grieving the loss of their baby. 

None of these scenarios depict the stereotype of a callous, selfish mother using abortion as birth control. The stereotypes are grossly wrong.  Such complex medical decisions need to be made between a mother and her physicians based on her particular circumstances. Her decisions also need to be HIPAA protected. Politics, social opinion, and blanket laws do not belong in the medical arena. Women are already traumatized by the circumstances causing them to require a late term abortion. Criminalizing their medical needs doesn’t change the need. It forces women to further jeopardize their health by obtaining unsafe abortions in order to attend to their medical needs and save their lives.