So-called “fetal pain” measures, which seek to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, have become one of the most popular type of state-level restrictions championed by abortion opponents. Over the past several years, more than a dozen states have moved to enact 20-week bans. Proponents of those policies typically say that cutting off legal abortion access halfway through pregnancy is a good compromise between the pro-life and pro-choice camps.
However, if GOP lawmakers are serious about their desire to compromise with reproductive rights supporters and work on preventing abortions, there’s mounting evidence that they’re focusing on the wrong policy.
The latest “fetal pain” showdown is unfolding in Wisconsin, where the legislature appears to be fast-tracking a 20-week abortion ban that Gov. Scott Walker (R) has already indicated he’s eager to sign. “I was raised to believe in the sanctity of life and I will always fight to protect it,” the presumptive presidential candidate said in March, when he first indicated his support for the policy.
But this particular legislation could actually undermine Walker’s position on abortion, according to medical experts who are opposed to Wisconsin’s proposed 20-week ban.
Testifying against the bill during a legislative hearing this week, Dr. Steven Leuthner, a professor of pediatrics and bioethics at the Medical College of Wisconsin, predicted that the measure “could backfire and lead to more terminations.”
That’s because many of the women seeking abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy are ending wanted pregnancies after discovering serious fetal abnormalities — health issues that typically don’t display themselves before the 20-week point. Then, as parents try to determine the best course of action, they typically want to have follow-up appointments with specialists who can give them a better sense of their unborn child’s prognosis outside of the womb. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, it may take a few weeks to get a final diagnosis.
So, if the window for legal abortion services is narrowed under a 20-week ban, patients dealing with difficult medical news may feel more rushed to make a quick decision about whether to terminate the pregnancy. They might not have enough time to seek out second and third opinions from experts. If they know the legal procedure won’t be available to them for much longer, they may opt to end the pregnancy before having a chance to get all the right information.
“There might be more abortions due to worse counseling,” Leuthner said. He added that, for the pregnant women who run out of time, “living day to day with a baby potentially dying inside them, that’s very psychologically damaging.”
Supporters of Wisconsin’s bill have disputed Leuthner’s predictions, arguing that other states with 20-week abortion bans haven’t seen dramatic increases in abortion procedures. But even if enacting a 20-week ban doesn’t lead abortions to dramatically rise, it won’t help them fall by any meaningful rate, either.
Abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy are already extremely rare, comprising just about one percent of all terminations nationwide. Suggesting that “fetal pain” bans are necessary to prevent hordes of women from having barbaric late-term abortion procedures simply doesn’t reflect the actual landscape of abortion patients. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the majority of U.S. women who have had an abortion say they actually would have preferred to have their procedure earlier.
From that perspective, 20-week abortion bans fit into a larger policy trend: Although Republican lawmakers talk a lot about preventing abortions generally or late-term abortions specifically, they have not pursued effective policies to accomplish that goal.
Specifically, GOP lawmakers have opposed putting taxpayer dollars toward family planning resources; limited teenagers’ access to effective birth control; thwarted efforts to implement comprehensive sex education programs; undermined the social safety net policies to provide support for struggling Americans who otherwise can’t afford a family; and restricted access to the safest and earliest forms of abortion that could lessen the need for later procedures. Instead, lawmakers have focused their attention on enacting a record-breaking number of laws designed to make it harder to get an abortion — even though there’s plenty of evidence demonstrating that abortion restrictions have no relationship to abortion rates.
In order to reach a legitimate political compromise regarding abortion, some reproductive rights proponents argue that GOP politicians should work with them to improve women’s access to birth control and first-trimester abortion, particularly among the low-income women who rely on taxpayer-funded social programs. But the Republican Party so far hasn’t indicated a willingness to cooperate with that.
In addition to failing to lower the abortion rate, “fetal pain” laws also fail to pass constitutional muster. Courts have consistently struck down 20-week abortion bans for violating Roe v. Wade, which stipulates that abortion should be legal until the point of viability. Just last week, a federal appeals court ruled against a 20-week ban in Idaho.