Missouri Says You Must Die

Missouri Says You Must Die

by | 11 Mar, 2022 | Our Blog

by Terry Bellamak

The state of Missouri says if you have an ectopic pregnancy you must die.

Missouri House Bill 2810, if it passes, would make aborting an ectopic pregnancy a felony. The health practitioners who do so would be felons after conviction. So would the pregnant person.

An ectopic pregnancy happens when an egg is fertilised outside the uterus, usually in the fallopian tube, and fails to implant in the uterus. The fetus cannot survive there, and it cannot move to the uterus.

If the patient receives treatment, usually surgery, to remove the fetus, they will survive and recover. If not, the fetus will burst the fallopian tube and the patient will haemorrhage and die.

This being Missouri, it is possible that this travesty, this death sentence for unlucky people with ectopic pregnancies, will pass and be signed into law.

Legislators are again attempting to practice medicine without a licence, and also without a clue. In the past, US anti-abortion legislators have demanded that, in case of ectopic pregnancy, doctors move the fetus to the uterus. But there is no such procedure. There is no treatment for ectopic pregnancy that saves the fetus, except in anti-abortion legislators’ imaginations. Either the fetus dies, or both fetus and pregnant person die.

How would this even work in practice? You’d get a diagnosis in Missouri and then … what? Rush to cross state lines to get treatment? That might not be completely impossible if you live near Illinois or Kansas. But what about folks in rural areas far from an interstate highway? Or folks with no car?

This is not normal behaviour for responsible adult legislators. This senseless bill demonstrates how far outside the mainstream these folks are, how the realities of science and medicine just pass them by.

If anyone doubts that the foundation of the anti-abortion movement is misogyny and the patriarchal desire to punish having sex without intending to procreate, look no farther than an anti-choice state that would pass a law requiring pregnant people to die or face prison.

A Testing Time Part 1: Old Fashioned Pregnancy Tests

A Testing Time Part 1: Old Fashioned Pregnancy Tests

by | 8 Mar, 2022 | Our Blog

by Margaret Sparrow

Last week I helped a friend do her first Rapid Antigen Test for Covid and we marvelled at the scientific progress and the rapid commercial development that made this possible. That got me thinking about the slow progress over the years that led eventually to the development of modern pregnancy tests which are now an essential component of safe abortion services.

Since antiquity the diagnosis of pregnancy has been attempted in a variety of ways. In ancient Egypt women soaked wheat or barley seeds in urine and if they germinated that indicated a pregnancy. A more dubious method was described by Hippocrates. The woman placed a small onion in her vagina overnight and if she was pregnant her breath would still smell sweet in the morning because a pregnancy would somehow stop the odour from spreading through her body. This practice, known as the garlic test was apparently widespread in France until the 18th Century.

Traditionally women have been perfectly capable of diagnosing a pregnancy without the use of any test – a missed menstrual period, a slight elevation of temperature and as the pregnancy progresses feelings of nausea and breast changes.

Pregnancy testing has evolved during the past half century from a time consuming complicated laboratory procedure using expensive test animals into a rapid, relatively inexpensive, reliable and convenient technique.

The basis for most pregnancy tests involves the detection (in either blood or urine) of human chorionic gonadotropin or hCG which is a glycoprotein hormone produced by the placenta during pregnancy. In normal pregnancy the production of hCG begins within 48 hours after implantation, ascends to a peak between 50 and 90 days then falls to a lower level throughout the pregnancy and  ceases soon after delivery.

In 1927 two German gynaecologists introduced the first biological test. They observed that urine from pregnant women injected into several immature female mice caused changes in the ovaries. After 4-5 days of repeated injections the test animals were killed and the ovaries examined for evidence of ovulation. The pregnancy hormones in the urine had stimulated the pituitary gland to produce ovulation hormones. This was even before hCG had been discovered.

Other biological tests were introduced. In 1932 Friedmann did the same thing to rabbits. “The rabbit died” became a euphemism for pregnancy.

In the 1930s and 1940s frogs became the ‘go to’ laboratory animals with the advantage that the reporting time was lessened and the frogs did not have to be killed. In some tests a male frog was injected under the skin with pregnant urine and within 18 hours a positive test was indicated by frog spawn and the presence of sperm under the microscope. In other tests a female frog was used and after an injection of pregnant urine the frog ovulated and the presence of eggs floating in the tank indicated a positive test. A disadvantage was that the woman usually had to be several weeks past the missed period for these tests to be reliable.

A refinement came with the use of toads. A small amount of urine was injected into the dorsal lymph sack of a male toad. Pregnancy hormones would cause the toad to spawn and sperm could be detected under a microscope within 3 hours. The test was not painful and the animal could be used for another test two weeks later.

A disadvantage of using frogs and toads was that they had to be kept in a temperature controlled environment and it was expensive to meet their fastidious requirements. In 1951 an enterprising scientist at the University of Kiel in Germany developed a reliable test using less demanding earthworms but somehow this never caught on. Biological tests were still being used in the 1960s but that was soon to change. And that is another story.

Oh and by the way my friend tested negative.

Dame Margaret Sparrow was a medical doctor, abortion provider, and president of ALRANZ for many years.

Lack of Abortion Care Can Kill

Lack of Abortion Care Can Kill

by | 3 Mar, 2022 | Our Blog

by Terry Bellamak

One of the most transparently ludicrous claims anti-abortion types have made in recent years is that ‘abortion is never medically necessary.’

Tell that to Savita Halappanavar, who died of sepsis after being denied abortion care in Ireland. Tell it to Valentina Miluzzo, who died of sepsis after being denied abortion care in Italy. Tell it to Agnieska T and the other unnamed woman who died of sepsis after being denied abortion care in Poland.

None of them had to die. All of them had treatable medical conditions. But the treatment required the abortion of their planned, wanted pregnancies.

Restricting abortion care leads inevitably to pregnant people dying. When doctors risk imprisonment for allowing an abortion, they are incentivised to wait until the patient is close to death so that authorities don’t challenge their decision. 

But even less stringent restrictions can put pregnant people in danger when abortion is so stigmatised that no one dares talk about it.

Few people know about it, but New Zealand has had its own experience with unnecessary death for lack of a termination.

Back in 2006, before our abortion law was reformed, the Health and Disability Commissioner (‘HDC’) commenced an investigation into the death of Ms B in 2004.

Ms B had a heart condition called aortic stenosis. This means her blood flow from her heart to her body’s main artery, the aorta, was partially blocked. She had an aortic valve replacement in 1997, and recovered. In 1999 Ms B gave birth to a son.

In 2004, after seeking advice from her cardiologist and receiving the all clear, Ms B again became pregnant.

Twenty weeks into her pregnancy, Ms B’s aortic stenosis returned. When she heard the news, Ms B became tearful and said she wished she could terminate the pregnancy, but didn’t think it was possible so late in her pregnancy.

In reality, termination of Ms B’s pregnancy would have been approved almost instantly had she been able to put the question to certifying consultants. Under the Crimes Act 1961 in force at the time, termination after 20 weeks was legal to ‘save the life of the woman or girl or to prevent serious permanent injury to her physical or mental health.’

But none of the doctors involved with Ms B’s care, nor her midwife, were prepared to discuss abortion with her. The HDC report refers to their actions as ‘delicately side-stepping an awkward issue.’ Given the clarity with which Ms B expressed her desire that medical staff not ‘ me be a baby incubator and then letting me die,’ it could also be characterised as obstruction.

Ms B was hospitalised. A termination followed by valve replacement surgery could have saved her life, even at this point. But her medical team insisted she continue the pregnancy. In the end, her condition deteriorated rapidly, and both she and her baby died during emergency surgery.

What killed Ms B?

Was it the silence around abortion that made ignorance of the law (and how certifying consultants applied it) so typical? Was it a kind of preciousness on the part of Ms B’s cardiologist, obstetrician, and midwife that would not let them acknowledge Ms B’s concerns for her own life? Were they full-blown conscientious objectors? Or did their moral or professional arrogance obscure the enormity of letting a woman die in the hope of saving a foetus?

It seems clear that the reason Ms B’s medical team did not listen to her was that she was talking about abortion. If abortion had been treated as normal health care, not covered in arcane legal restrictions and sexist shame, then Ms B and her family could have pushed back more effectively. Her medical team’s indifference to Ms B’s wishes could have received appropriate condemnation well before it turned up in an HDC report.

It seems clear to me that what killed Ms B was abortion stigma.

Nowadays, after law reform, a case like this is unlikely to happen. This is not only because we have a new law, but also because the debate around law reform put a big dent in abortion stigma, and established abortion as health care that people have a right to. But as long as abortion remains ‘controversial’, the battle is not over.

The Challenge

The Challenge

by | 17 Feb, 2022 | Our Blog

by Terry Bellamak

At the second reading for the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Bill, Kieran McAnulty issued a challenge. At the end of his call, he laid it down:

“If you’re going to vote against it – fine. Get up and tell us why.”

I wonder if any will rise to the challenge.

Opposing people being able to go to work or get health care without being harassed by anti-abortion protesters is a hard position to defend.

The MPs in question might go the route of many submitters to the Health Select Committee, who ignored the bill’s obvious boundaries and used the opportunity to attack abortion itself. Not unexpected, but not a very useful strategy, considering the fight for abortion as health care has been decisively won.

The work of the Health Select Committee has left them without even the fig leaf of hand-wringing over freedom of expression. The Attorney-General has made it clear he considers the current version of the bill limits freedom of expression only to an extent that is justified in a free and democratic society.

The new definitions of ‘protected person’ and the sorts of activities that the bill prohibits are narrowly defined. All areas will be bespoke, so that they will be as small as possible to achieve their objective.

(It will take months for the Ministry of Health to finely handcraft each one, which is not ideal. The process needs to be abbreviated. But that is a rant for another day. Soon.)

It seems probable that MPs who oppose the bill will do as they did at the third reading of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill and not make a speech, figuratively slinking through the ‘no’ door wearing a disguise.

In a way, this is good news. It is a signal of how the frame has shifted over the past 2 years. Abortion has taken its rightful place in the mainstream. Attacking pregnant people and abortion providers is now fringe.

The ‘no’ MPs will be explaining this vote for the rest of their careers. Will they come up with some reasons? Or will they take the path of least resistance and keep schtum?

Only time will tell.

Antivax / antiabortion

Antivax / antiabortion

by | 26 Jan, 2022 | Our Blog

by Terry Bellamak

 

“My heart is beating like I’ve literally been attacked. It was so terrifying.”

These are the words of a woman who was accosted by protesters outside a medical facility.

As it happens, she was not seeking an abortion. Rather, she was getting her children vaccinated against Covid-19. But the harassment is so similar I’ll bet you weren’t sure.

A few years ago, during the passage of the Abortion Legislation Act, I was casting about for an analogy to the harassment abortion patients routinely face. To be equivalent, it had to involve health care that some people disagreed with vociferously but that was entirely none of their business.

I thought of comparing it to anti-vax protesters objecting to parents vaccinating their children. What if an anti-vax person, holding a sign printed with ridiculous falsehoods, accosted a person trying to walk into a surgery with their children, calling them a child abuser for doing so?

I couldn’t make it work, because it was too far-fetched. How would the anti-vax protester know why the family was there? And anyway, who would act like that? Who would feel entitled to behave so threateningly in any context EXCEPT health care as stigmatised as abortion?

And here we are.

The parallels between anti-vax harassment and anti-abortion harassment are obvious.

In both cases, protesters decide they have the right to get in the faces of people trying to get safe, legal, routine health care that is none of their business.

But the protesters feel justified because they believe the people getting care should not be doing what they are doing, and because their opposition arises from deeply held beliefs. The people they are harassing do not share these beliefs. So there is an element of judgement.

And then there are the signs. Misleading, with misinformation and outright lies masquerading as differing opinions.

Both sets of protesters frame themselves as defenders of free speech, but they fail to recognise the right of others not to be violently confronted while they are trying to go about their business. They forget that freedom of expression does not obligate anyone to listen to you.

In both cases the organisations that perpetrate the harassment are disingenuous about it. They claim the harassment is not the work of THEIR group – they are just standing quietly. It must be some OTHER group of protesters who happen to also be there for the same purpose at the same time. Or something. They both say they have codes of conduct – but who enforces those codes?

Anti-vax folks have misappropriated the term ‘pro-choice,’ tacitly acknowledging the force of reproductive rights arguments around bodily autonomy. But in their hands it’s more like ‘choice for me but not for thee.’ Folks like Brian and Hannah Tamaki still deny the right of pregnant people to choose abortion. I guess bodily autonomy is only for some people.

What about the bodily autonomy of those who choose to be vaccinated – don’t they also have the right to choose the course of their own health care?

What about those who can’t be vaccinated? What about those who are immunocompromised? Doesn’t their right to bodily autonomy allow for them to be protected from those who choose not to be vaccinated? Choices come with consequences, i.e. greater risk of catching Covid-19, but an anti-vax person’s ill-advised tolerance for risk should not be allowed to increase the risks to other people.

People in line at vaccination centres know that the vast majority of the country is on their side.

Anti-vax protesters are on the fringe, both culturally and numerically. Over 90% of New Zealanders have demonstrated that they disagree with anti-vax folks by getting vaccinated. Epidemiologists debunk anti-vax claims in the media regularly.

But for the past 50 year abortion has been stigmatised. Even people who were completely certain they were doing the right thing assumed that a large percentage of New Zealanders disagreed with them.

In recent years that has not been not the case. A majority of New Zealanders support treating abortion as health care, and have done so for years before Parliament took up law reform. But New Zealand’s unique ‘available on the down low’ system left people feeling isolated and vulnerable. 

And only about 12,000 people each year were in a position to experience anti-abortion harassment firsthand. Not all of them did.

Now that many people have also seen or experienced abuse and harassment while trying to get their children vaccinated against Covid-19, New Zealanders have a better understanding about what organisations like ALRANZ, APGANZ, and Family Planning have been talking about all these years. People should never be harassed at all, but especially not while seeking health care.

We need safe areas for abortion care. We have needed them for years. Email your MP to remind them to vote for safe areas at second and third readings.

 

Safe areas and the intersection between the anti-abortion and anti-vax movements

Safe areas and the intersection between the anti-abortion and anti-vax movements

by | 19 Nov, 2021 | Our Blog

By Ella Shepherd

On Tuesday, Kieran McAnulty (MP for the Wairarapa) shared his story about encounters with the anti-vax movement of Aotearoa. While speaking to his Wairarapa electorate, Kieran described being verbally assaulted and receiving numerous death threats, all while being filmed by his anti-vax assailant. This was a vile incident that rightly caused Kieran to fear for his safety.

Kieran spoke to Parliamentary Security about extending measures to protect MPs, such as installing security systems in MPs’ residences in both Wellington and their electorates. Such an assault on an MP is nerve-racking. Kieran noted that the mood changed pretty quickly, creating a volatile situation. Other MPs, such as Chris Bishop, have also described receiving “pretty abusive” messages. Likewise, David Seymour said MPs are becoming aware “we have to watch our back” because of heated interactions with constituents. Across Parliament there is consensus: threats of violence from anti-vaxxers are starting to escalate. Of course, this is awful. Anti-vaxxers take hard-line positions, are unwilling to compromise, and cross boundaries to reinforce their point. These confrontations are scary, and MPs are right to worry about their safety. As Kieran noted, situations can escalate quickly and create dangerous environments.

There is a parallel between anti-vax protesters targeting MPs and anti-abortion protestors targeting those accessing and providing abortion healthcare. First, the groups have considerable overlap in membership. Recent protests at Parliament came with signs that were both anti-abortion and anti-vax. As we can see in the photo above, many in the anti-vax movement are also anti-abortion. Furthermore, some of the key anti-abortion groups whose supporters regularly target abortion clinics also take an anti-vax stance. For example, Right to Life New Zealand’s Facebook page now posts a mix of anti-abortion and anti-vax rhetoric, such as this post from the 31st of October (below). 

 These aggressive and threatening tactics are not new – abortion providers and patients have long been targeted by these groups. It’s just that now MPs are also experiencing a taste. More MPs are being confronted with people getting up in their face while they are minding their business. With people filming them and uploading footage online to encourage others to join in on the threatening behaviour. With being called a murderer. 

For MPs to now recognise that these behaviours are frightening is to finally accept what pregnant people and abortion providers have been saying for decades. After meeting with Parliament Security earlier this week, Kieran stated that all MPs would now be granted access to a security

 

upgrade, rather than having to ask for one. Meanwhile, pregnant people and abortion providers are still advocating for the Safe Areas Amendment Bill to be passed. Put simply, it would be hypocritical in the extreme for an MP to vote against abortion providers and patients getting protection from the same sort of harassment that MPs are able to protect themselves from, promptly and without hoop jumping.

While MPs can now access upgraded security, abortion providers and patients still have to go through a lengthy process. Not only are they waiting for the Bill to be passed, but once it is passed protection isn’t even ensured. Providers will still have to wait for the Minister of Health to consult with the Minister of Justice, and then recommend the establishment of a safe area. This is lengthy, discretionary, and does not accord with the reality of harassment outside abortion centres.

MPs and Parliament more broadly are aware that these people threaten the safety of others by pushing their anti-vax ideology onto unwilling citizens. MPs are able to push for greater protection for themselves in the face of these assaults. What are they doing to also protect abortion providers and patients? How are they ensuring safe areas are established in a timely and effective manner? Relatively privileged MPs are now feeling the heat, but ordinary people and healthcare workers are well and truly scalded.