A young woman goes to a clinic for what she thinks will be a safe, third-trimester abortion. She stays in a hotel room rather than the watch of a hospital bed for this multi-day procedure. She begins to suffer complications, but it is too late when she arrives at the hospital. She soon dies.
This is the heartbreaking story of Jennifer Morbelli, who died in Maryland following a 33-week abortion. Jennifer’s tragedy highlights one of many terrifying possible consequences to women’s health care if voters fail to reject the Ohio Issue 1 “Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment” next week.
As a board-certified OB/GYN, I fear this amendment’s extreme position. It is the rare physician who can bring themselves to perform late-term abortions – 86 percent of OB/GYNs do not offer abortion at any gestational age, including me. But among the 14 percent of OB/GYNs who perform abortions, 89 percent will not do them at 24 weeks (commonly the age of fetal viability).
As Ohio considers this amendment – and other states weigh similar measures in the coming year – residents should ask why that is, who they are inviting into their state by allowing it, and what the end goal of these amendments is.
Using legal, linguistic sleight of hand, the activist crafters of Ohio’s Issue 1 amendment utilize fear tactics to distract from what they are paving the way for - unlimited access to abortion, for any reason, at every stage of pregnancy, without parental consent. I will highlight just two of the many terrible possibilities for Ohio.
First, the Ohio amendment’s language opens the door to eliminating health and safety standards (as “burdens”) that protect women seeking an abortion, including requiring physicians to perform any abortion beyond 19 weeks in a hospital. This is not the care Jennifer Morbelli received, but it is what she deserved. Women in states with essential safety standards cannot afford to have them wiped off the books.
Second, Issue 1 would also legalize abortion in Ohio up to birth. The amendment requires the consent of a single, financially motivated physician to agree that the abortion is good for the woman’s “health.”
The “health” standard is intentionally broad and undefined language. Performing an abortion for health could include virtually any reason to which the abortionist agrees. For example, the notorious Colorado abortionist Warren Hern asserts that “every pregnancy is a health issue” and that “the viability of a fetus is determined not by gestational age but by a woman’s willingness to carry it.” Under this framework, he performs abortions for any reason, at any gestational age. This rationale goes far beyond what most see as reasonable allowances to intervene to save a woman’s life and opens the door to late-term abortions.
It is crucial to understand how late-term abortions are done when assessing these amendments. The procedure cannot be reduced to the banal euphemism “ending a pregnancy.” The most standard method is dilation and evacuation. This involves systematically dismembering the baby - limb by limb - and crushing the baby’s head to extract it through the birth canal. Dr. Hern does this on fully-formed babies in healthy women. Most babies who die this way are healthy, and so are their mothers.
Babies in these late-term abortions can feel pain as they are destroyed. World experts in fetal pain, Derbyshire and Bockman, state “the evidence...points towards an immediate and unreflective pain experience mediated by the developing function of the nervous system from as early as 12 weeks.” The revelation of what is happening to the fetus in a dilation and evacuation is too gruesome and painful even to consider, let alone witness or perform, which is why so few physicians are willing to do it or offer it to their patients.
Under the guise of reestablishing the standards under Roe v. Wade, abortion proponents stoke fear with false claims that this amendment is necessary to ensure miscarriage and life-saving care. The reality is Ohio law already protects women in these circumstances. State law clearly differentiates between miscarriages and abortion and has provisions for life-threatening emergency care, including ectopic pregnancy and inevitable miscarriage. The answer to provider confusion is education on state law. Ohioans do not need a radical amendment to our state constitution, which goes far beyond what Roe v. Wade ever did.
This extreme amendment would harm my patients, not help them. As a board-certified OB/Gyn, I will be voting no on Ohio’s Issue 1, and I urge voters in Ohio or other states who consider similar amendments to do the same.
Dr. Alicia Thompson is a board-certified OB/GYN in Columbus, Ohio.