When Prochoice Narratives Become Force or Coerced Abortion
Why using dead women's stories is exploitative and harmful to women's rights
In 2007, Georgia passed the Georgia Advance Directive Care Act.
The law gives everyone agency to choose what they want to happen should they end up in the tragic situation of either being put on various levels of life support or passing away, including pregnant women.
One particular part of the law that only applies to pregnant women is that a lack of advanced directives during pregnancy is assumed to be the desire to maintain the pregnancy as long as possible to support the life of the child the mother is carrying. This takes the decision out of the mother's family's hands and puts it squarely back in the hands of the pregnant woman. Why? Because she is making the decision for two people as her child resides within her. She carries the child and the legal burden of decision making for the child.
How Women Became Solely Responsible for Parenting During Pregnancy
The abortion industry and pro-abortion advocacy has created this situation. They have placed the full burden and responsibility for parenting choices during pregnancy upon women, cutting out the father's and other family members input responsibility, agency, or input. I am not suggesting that others should have the right to override a woman's decisions about what she does to or with her own body. I am suggesting fathers should have a say in what happens to their child's body.
Unfortunately, the abortion industry is not a fan of nuance in order to support women in pregnancy or to keep men accountable for the offspring they assist in creating, going so far as to oppose legislation protecting child support during pregnancy and laws against feticide for wanted pregnancies, “Seizing on tragic stories of violence against pregnant women, 38 states have adopted feticide laws that allow homicide charges to be brought for violent acts that cause the loss of a pregnancy.8 While most of these laws exclude pregnant people for being charged in relation to their own pregnancies, they have served to normalise the idea that fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses are separate human beings and crime victims.”
The abortion industry is only interested in one choice, abortion. Thus, all decisions during pregnancy including the decision to not complete advanced directives, is a parenting decision the mother makes alone. In absence of those directives, the state chooses to assume the woman wanted to maintain her pregnancy, preventing others from forcing abortion upon her and her child should she be unable to speak for herself.
Why Advanced Directives for Pregnant Women?
Part of being an adult is planning for yourself and your family in the event of a medical crisis or death. Some people choose not to have advanced directives and/or a will and that is their right. It is not for you or me to judge why people do or do not have advanced directives or wills. It is not for you or me to assume they lack the awareness, agency, or ability to make those decisions.
Without this law, pregnant women in Georgia would NOT have the option to opt out of life support. Georgia's abortion laws would be all there is to guide medical professionals in these situations. While medical professionals are NOT legal experts, they are responsible for knowing how state and federal laws impact their practice. Ms. Smith's family stated the doctors told them it was abortion laws preventing them from removing life support. I have no way of knowing what occurred during these discussions and the medical professionals are legally barred from speaking about it. So, I can only assume that if the medical professionals did tell the family that, they were negligent in awareness regarding the 2007 Georgia Advance Directive Care Act.
(This would be the second time medical malpractice impacted Ms. Smith and her family. We will talk about the 1st gross malpractice that occurred, likely resulting in the death of Ms. Smith in a moment. Before we do that, let's talk about what spinning narratives and making assumptions on behalf of women does to women's rights.)
Effect of Proabortion Narratives on Women’s Autonomy
It is not prochoice to assume a woman who did not have an advanced directive would want life support terminated, ending the life of the child, she was carrying. It is bypassing her agency in choosing not to have advanced directives. In effect, it is forcing an abortion upon her and the death of her child without her consent.
That is what I find so disturbing around the news stories regarding the case of Adriana Smith, whose son was born alive Friday and her family reports she will be taken off life support today. Adriana is/was a mother, nurse, and fully grown and autonomous adult woman who chose not to have advanced directives. We have no reason to assume ignorance, laziness, or a lack of agency on her part regarding the law and advanced directives. Adriana also chose to maintain her pregnancy until 9 weeks, past Georgia's abortion ban. We have no reason to assume she didn't want to continue the pregnancy or for her son to be born alive.
It is an egregious violation of Ms. Smith's autonomy and agency and an infantilization of her abilities for organizations who proclaim to support reproductive rights to assume it wasn't her choice to forgo advanced directives. Furthermore, they seem to want to pick and choose when a woman actually has autonomy and when they get to remove her autonomy and place it in the hands of others.
Did you catch that shift from assumed autonomy to assumed ignorance or inability by Agbo Ikor? Ms. Smith did exercise her autonomy. She chose not to complete advanced directives. Politicians didn't make that decision for her. They are simply honoring her decision. Any choice her family makes at this point is them exercising their will on her body and the body of her child. That has nothing to do with “her bodily autonomy.” How quickly the proclamations about women's autonomy fly out the window and how quickly justice disappears when organizations prioritize abortion over the choices of the mother.
What is even more egregious is the ongoing lack of conversation regarding high-quality healthcare for women during pregnancy. Ms. Smith's life may have been saved if the hospital had recognized her symptoms for what they were. She died of medical malpractice, due to undiagnosed and untreated Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis, not a lack of abortion.
The Real Women’s Right’s Issue: Equal Access to Healthcare
Ms. Smith's complaints of severe headaches were met with assumptions of a none life-threatening condition. She was sent home with medications to manage headaches.
While CVT is rare, is it not worth the life of a mother and child to trust she knows her headaches are not normal for her and do an MRI? We see this same predicament all too often in women with complaints of symptoms consistent with preeclampsia who are sent home without as much as a simple urine analysis to test for proteins indicative of preeclampsia.
For a thorough discussion of various testing methods for preeclampsia visit:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK577933/
For a 2019 study on point of care urinalysis screening, visit:https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7239432/#:~:text=A%20total%20of%20140%20preeclampsia,(P%3C0.0001)%20respectively.
The issue here isn't a lack of abortion. The issue is either women being regarding with doubt or a medical system that prioritizes financial expediency and rapid turnover of patients rather than diagnostics. Perhaps both. If we are to refrain from making assumptions about Ms. Smith and rather trust she made the choices she wanted to make, Adriana's legacy could be one of all of us going together to advocate for better maternal healthcare for mothers and support for children who tragically have to grow up without their mothers.
Instead, abortion activists are exploiting her story to make a case of medical malpractice about something that was never at play. They appear to be politically and ideologically driven organizations and individuals who want to exploit her death for their agenda. It is a disturbing trend of shifting from prochoice to pro-abortion, where abortion is the assumed choice rather than respecting the actual autonomous decisions of women.
Other Common Exploitations by the Abortion Industry and Activists
Cases of Pregnancy Following Rape
This happens to women who conceive after being raped. It is assumed in their behalf they would want abortion. According to studies published in 1979, 1981, 1996, and 1999, and 2013 somewhere between 50% and 80% do not.
Cases of Fetal Anomaly
This happens to women who have very much wanted pregnancies who receive the tragic news of a fatal fetal anomaly. It is assumed they want to terminate. When given the option of perinatal hospice and palliative care, over 85% choose to continue their pregnancy according to research published in 2019.
If you want a full exploration of both perinatal hospice and palliative care as well as termination options for fetal anomaly, visit: https://www.perinatalhospice.org/faqs
Cases of Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Risks
This happens to women in high-risk pregnancies facing their own medical crisis, as I was. It is assumed we want termination. Based on the small number of abortions that occur due to maternal medical complications, 3.8% of abortions annually (approx. 30,000), compared to the percentage of high-risk pregnancies, about 1% annually (approx. 65,000) it is safe to say majority of us want our baby saved if at all possible.
For an excellent breakdown of high-risk pregnancy and options for care, see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK555485/#:~:text=Hypertensive%20disorders%20affect%2010%20percent%20of%20all,(Centers%20for%20Disease%20Control%20and%20Prevention%2C%202019a).&text=Preeclampsia%20occurs%20in%205%20to%208%20percent,pregnant%20women%20(National%20Institutes%20of%20Health%2C%202019).
Conclusion:
Being pro-choice is NOT making assumptions about what women want based on what you think you would want in their situation. Being prochoice is about believing women get to make the choice for their body and their baby. Ms. Smith made her choices. It is not our right to decide for her, when she can no longer speak, what should happen to her body or her child. Perhaps we can stop exploiting the death of Ms. Adriana Smith for hot takes regarding abortion and politics and work together to prevent more women from dying and support children in need.
If you want to support Ms. Smith's legacy, support her family which endures because of her choices, love, and sacrifices: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-adrianas-family-during-this-heartbreaking-journey
You can read Georgia law's current status here: https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-31/chapter-32/section-31-32-9/
Most states have similar laws. Do you know what your choices are in your state? You can look into them here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6487543/figure/jld190010f1/