Summary

Avery Davis Bell faced severe complications with a miscarriage in Georgia, where restrictive abortion laws delayed her necessary medical care.

At 18 weeks pregnant, she was forced to wait for life-saving treatment due to Georgia’s abortion restrictions, which prevent immediate intervention unless a medical emergency escalates.

Bell’s experience highlights the risks imposed by post-Dobbs state laws, with maternal deaths rising faster in states with strict abortion bans.

The law’s impact on Bell’s experience highlights the inhumane consequences of abortion restrictions, which can lead to unnecessary suffering and even death.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    92
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 days ago

    “God’s will.”

    You’re never going to be able to argue against that. No amount of explaining to them the atrocious cruelty of things like this trumps “God’s will” for the anti-abortionists.

    If you have a miscarriage, God’ will. If you die and your baby lives, God’s will. If you both die, God’s will. If you would have lived if you had just had an abortion, YOU MURDERER!!!

    • Thrillhouse@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      49
      ·
      edit-2
      4 days ago

      I think it’s god’s will when men aren’t able to get erections. It’s not natural to use viagara or cialis. Surely the same people so in tune with god’s will would agree with that one, right?

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        43
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        4 days ago

        You would think.

        They also seem to have no problem with things like stents or insulin pumps if they need them.

        Not to mention eyeglasses.

        • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          14
          ·
          edit-2
          4 days ago

          I swear, the amount of times I’ve had someone complain about abortions or gay people being unnatural while at the same time wearing eyeglasses and living in a place filled to the brim with televisions, phones, computers, radios, electrical lights, internet, electric ovens…

    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      4 days ago

      I mean, you can’t argue against it philosophically, but you can argue against it legally, which is all that matters.

      At least, you used to…

    • Soup@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      4 days ago

      I think it’s God’s Will™ that I’m about to push them in front of oncoming traffic.

    • dgmib@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      4 days ago

      That’s not an accurate take. There are some pro-lifers who are like that but most are in favour of exceptions when it’s to save the mother’s life, or the fetus has a fatal deformity.

      They just don’t (want to) understand that the intentionally vague wording of anti-abortion laws makes it basically impossible for doctors to perform medically indicated abortions until it’s too late to save the patient.

      If you claim to be “pro-life” the least you can do is advocate for clear definitions of the medical circumstances where abortive medical procedures are permitted.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        4 days ago

        Most? Maybe. The ones in legislatures? Not so much. Especially not in Idaho, where even the life of the mother doesn’t matter.

        But you’re right that they don’t want to understand. They know what these “life of the mother excepted” laws lead to in practice. Especially now. And yet they haven’t changed their minds. They’re just putting their hands over their ears and saying, “LA LA LA LA LA!”

  • hydroptic@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    34
    ·
    4 days ago

    The law’s impact on Bell’s experience highlights the inhumane consequences of abortion restrictions, which can lead to unnecessary suffering and even death.

    The purpose of a system is what it does

  • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    4 days ago

    As the deaths continue to add up black market abortions will be performed like pre Roe under shitty conditions that will also result in more patients bleeding out or getting infection and sepsis.

  • capital@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    3 days ago

    I wrote in my own name for president this time around. That way I’m sure to be 100% perfectly aligned with who I voted for. I’m sorry to hear about this but I just couldn’t vote for Harris. /s

  • Aermis@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 days ago

    I’d like to see more statistics so I can argue the effect of this with more conservative people in my family. Unfortunately statistics like “deaths related to abortion laws saw 56% increase from 2018 to 2022” when Dobbs decisions was made in 2021 isn’t exactly a strong argument to show that this decision is leading to deaths and not related to the effects of covid.

    And before you argue with me, trust me you can’t convince them that a fetus isn’t a life. They will treat a fetus the same as a newborn baby. So unless I can prove to them that the law hurts mothers who want the baby I won’t convince them the law is unjust, and abortion = murder.

    I need to show increase in maternity deaths, unviable births, miscarriages leading to death, forced births leading to deaths. I need to show how this law actually hurts people who want children.

    This isn’t an argument about choice. The idea that a woman can terminate an unborn baby at will cannot be used as an argument here. There is no consensus that a “collection of cells isn’t a baby”. Remember that the same people who want to ban abortions also want women to have sex with a partner that is willing to have a child, unplanned pregnancies being part of that journey.

    I just narrowly won over that contraception should be medically available.

    • AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      4 days ago

      Let’s steelman the position and say 100% fetuses are complete people equal to any other person.

      Then the issue becomes, does the government have the right to force you to use your body to support another person?

      If I stab you in the kidney, and you’ll die without a kidney transplant, can the government forcibly remove my kidney and give it to you? Obviously not.

      Exact same thing with abortion. The whole argument of wether or not a fetus is a person is irrelevant. Nobody can be forced to use their body to support another person.

      • Mirshe@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        3 days ago

        The problem is not the fact that fetuses are people or not, it’s Napoleon’s “some animals are more equal than others” from Animal Farm. They view the fetus as MORE important and deserving of more rights and care than the person carrying the fetus to term.

        Yes, literally. I promise you, I have met a scary amount of conservatives who think women are only good for making babies and cleaning the house.

    • loutr@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      3 days ago

      You should get all the stats you need in the upcoming years. Not sure it will make a difference though.

      • Aermis@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        3 days ago

        No. No they’re not. They are not evil. This is the problem with the entire debate on abortion. Not everyone that is pro life leans with destroying care for the living. It’s not a black and white argument. Unfortunately the law is black and white which is leading to deaths. Deaths that they need to understand is the cause of the Supreme Court decision

  • Verdant Banana@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    edit-2
    4 days ago

    Bell said she does not blame her doctors at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Rather, she blames the law itself.

    it is on the doctor’s to either take the risk or quit

    people have to step up for change to happen

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      4 days ago

      I agree… However, I do understand the hesitance as well. Imagine spending untolds amount of money, and over a decade in school, only to end up with a 99 year prison sentence for preventing a woman with a miscarriage from dying.

      Fuck this country.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        4 days ago

        “You save this lady’s life or you don’t have to find a new way to feed your kids” is not a position anyone should have to be put in.

    • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      4 days ago

      It’s easy to armchair say you’d go to prison for it. A doctor who goes to jail won’t be practicing medicine again, kinda hard to do CME as an inmate…

        • medgremlin@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          3 days ago

          This has already started happening and the result is that there are growing swaths of red states where there is little to no access to OB/Gyn care. Women in places like Idaho are on waiting lists for OB/Gyns so long that their first prenatal appointment can be as late as 20 weeks into the pregnancy. The waiting list problem doesn’t even account for the fact that women are having to drive as much as 200 miles to get to appointments.