The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
In the days since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision nullified Roe v. Wade, returning regulation of abortion back to the states, there has been a campaign of misinformation about what constitutes an abortion.
Celebrities and pundits who support abortion on demand are the biggest culprits, using their substantial platforms to scare women into believing that treatment for ectopic pregnancies and medical care after a miscarriage would be banned under a post-Roe regime.
On June 27, Halle Berry tweeted: “The treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is abortion. … The treatment for a miscarriage that your body won’t release is abortion. If you can’t get those abortions, you die.”
The tweet, which is so dishonest it would make Pinocchio blush, got over 390,000 likes.
A few days later, a roundup of celebrity “abortion stories” in the Hollywood Reporter included two accounts by actors that falsely describe medical care they received after miscarriage as abortion.
“Roe v. Wade protected my rights as a woman to have miscarriages without scrutiny,” wrote actress Hilarie Burton on her Instagram account. “Your miscarriage will make you a murder suspect.”
What Berry and Burton describe — ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage — is tragic. Speaking from my own experience, I know that losing a child at any stage of development is deeply painful. But miscarriage and ectopic pregnancies are also completely natural events that sometimes require medical attention.
In both cases, the embryo or fetus has died or will die, as will the mother in some more dire circumstances, unless she receives medical care. That is not the moral, medical or legal equivalent of abortion as we have come to know it.
There is no ethical correlation between a woman seeking to terminate a pregnancy she doesn’t want and one who requires emergency care in the aftermath of losing one naturally. Pro-life doctors, who do not perform abortions, readily provide lifesaving care to women who have suffered pregnancy loss and ectopic pregnancy.
It’s hard to take seriously the efforts to conflate abortion and miscarriage care, but with many Americans uncertain about what the Dobbs decision actually does, it isn’t surprising that abortion supporters would seek to sow more confusion.
To wit, a Harvard-Harris poll conducted after the court’s ruling found that 72 percent of respondents said that they supported abortion up until 15 weeks — the exact law at stake in Dobbs — while 49 percent went only to six weeks. As writer Charles C.W. Cooke explains, “Both of these views were incompatible with Roe, which means that, whether they knew it or not, many Americans said they supported Roe while opposing what Roe actually did.”
If abortion supporters are genuinely worried about the future of ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage care, now would be the time to ensure that lawmakers understand the difference between those treatments and elective abortion.
If nuances need to be addressed to protect women who have experienced pregnancy loss, they have ample opportunity to minimize confusion and enshrine protections into future laws.
But if abortion supporters continue to spread these false narratives, it will be obvious that protecting abortion — not women — is their primary goal.
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