Life-saving abortions don’t exist. pic.twitter.com/aR9t4KXlmo
— Students for Life of America (@StudentsforLife) June 28, 2023
Kristan Hawkins, who is paid a six-figure salary to lead pro-life Students for Life and wants to ban birth control, falsely claimed in a Twitter video “there is no such thing as a life-saving abortion,” an anti-abortion talking point that has been debunked by medical experts.
Stacey Beck, MD and Assistant Professor at the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, Maternal Fetal Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Physicians, told Reuters when an abortion may be needed to save a woman’s life:
One of the most common reasons I help women to terminate their pregnancy is because their water is broke [early in pregnancy] and they have an infection.
[If there’s a clear sign of infection, the condition can be life threatening] because there is an extremely high risk that the infection inside of the uterus spreads very quickly into her bloodstream and she becomes septic. If she continues the pregnancy it comes at a very high risk of death.
[If a woman is bleeding so heavily that she can go into hemorrhagic shock] then we would also recommend a very urgent termination of pregnancy or abortion as a life saving measure for the mom, in order to prevent her bleeding to death.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists notes when an abortion is necessary to save a woman’s life:
Pregnancy complications, including placental abruption, bleeding from placenta previa, preeclampsia or eclampsia, and cardiac or renal conditions, may be so severe that abortion is the only measure to preserve a woman’s health or save her life.
Dr. Barbara Ley, vice president of health policy at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, explained to CNN the situations in which an abortion is needed to save a woman’s life:
They might include premature rupture of membranes (where the fluid surrounding the fetus is lost before labor), uterine infection, preeclampsia, placental abruption and placenta accreta. Women under these circumstances may have extensive blood loss or septic shock that can be fatal.
(Sources: The Wrap, Pro Publica, CNN, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Reuters, Students for Life/Twitter, NPR)