Overturning Roe, Miscarriages, and IVF: Extremism Versus Compassion

Since Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court Justices overturned Roe v. Wade, our country has been plunged into chaos. Draconian laws and extreme court decisions:

have made criminals of pregnant women, their loved ones, and their doctors,
forced women to have miscarriages at home rather than at the hospital, and
threaten the opportunity for childless couples to have a child through in vitro fertilization (IVF).

As a devout Catholic, Joe Biden personally doesn’t like abortion. As President he rejects the extremism of both sides. We can’t let extremists of all stripes tear us apart. We must recover our compassion, find common ground, and address dire, hurtful consequences many of us did not foresee.

Mr. Trump, while proud his Supreme Court Justices overturned Roe v. Wade, has been telling extremists to tone things down during the campaign. “You have to win elections,” he reminds them. He sees “the a-word” as he calls abortion, as a political loser.

As a result of Mr. Trump’s Justices overturning Roe v. Wade, extreme laws have swept the nation. Nearly 1 in 3 women now live in a state where the procedure is banned or banned in nearly all circumstances. To avoid even the appearance of violating these laws, many doctors and hospitals are not providing standard care during pregnancy.

Impact on Women Suffering Miscarriages & Terminal Pregnancies

As the tragic story of Kate Cox in Texas has demonstrated, narrow exceptions on paper can’t resolve real life tragedies. In Cox’s case, her ability to have more children was severely threatened by her pregnancy. But in Texas the only exception is the life of the mother. Further, the Texas law bans the procedure after six weeks, before most women know they are pregnant. In her case, they were told by their doctor at 20 weeks about their baby’s terrible terminal condition due to Trisomy 18, a genetic disorder.

Cox, a mother of two, and her husband Justin were told that if the baby survived the birth she would live only a week or less and would be put into Hospice immediately. Having the baby would also put at serious risk her ability to have more children, which she and Justin definitely want to do; they want a big family.

When asked why she didn’t have the baby girl Kate said: “I want more babies … and I didn’t want her to suffer.”

Cox tried and tried to resolve things in her home state of Texas, because in her grief she wanted to be comforted by her loved ones in her own home after the procedure. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve been through.”

Cox won in district court. After that ruling Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — who was impeached by his own party for corruption and bribery — warned that anyone helping Cox would be prosecuted. The district court decision “will not insulate you, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability, including first degree felony prosecutions.”

The Texas Supreme Court denied her request, arguing that her doctor didn’t assert that Cox’s life was in danger in a legally satisfying way.

Because of extreme laws, similar tragedies happen everyday. Around 900,000 miscarriages happen each year. But now parents are being sent away by hospitals when they know the pregnancy is terminal, told to go home to have a miscarriage without the benefit of lifesaving medical care if something should go wrong. Or they must wait until the unborn baby’s heart stops before doctors can help.

Many doctors, out of fear of going to jail from overzealous prosecution, are not providing standard life-saving care during a pregnancy to avoid even the appearance of violating these extreme laws. In some cases women are being forced to undergo C-sections instead of standard care, risking their health, their ability to have children in the future, and even death.

Republican legislators in some states like Oklahoma and Tennessee have proposed bills to make criminals out of loved ones or friends who help women cross state lines to end a pregnancy. They could spend up to 15 years in prison simply for giving them gas money or texting them the address of a clinic. Idaho has already passed such a law, but it is currently blocked by court order.

Impact on Availability of IVF to Grow Families

And now the ability for childless couples to have a baby through in vitro fertilization (IVF), or for moms who have lost the ability to have children except through IVF, is in legal peril due to an extreme opinion by the Alabama Supreme Court.

Elissa Smith and her husband Taylor, who live in Birmingham, dreamed of having multiple children. But right before she gave birth to their daughter she found out she had cervical cancer.

“Now IVF embryo transfers is my only hope at expanding our family and having more biological children, and I hope that it’s not gone. And I hope that more barriers aren’t put in place for people like me, or people not like me, to have the family that they always envisioned.”

Proposed federal legislation in the House based on the same rationale of the Alabama ruling does not include an exception for IVF. Extremists want to take things even further, and have attacked exceptions for IVF as a “license to kill.”

Rejecting Extremism & Approaching Families with Compassion

We agree with President Biden that we must reject the extremism of both sides and work with the common ground that does exist. There must be reasonable limits on the procedure’s availability later in a pregnancy, but compassion must rule the day in all circumstances, especially with miscarriages and pregnancies that threaten the life of the mother or future fertility. Doctors must not be afraid to provide standard medical care during pregnancy. And the threat to IVF must be stopped. President Biden will help chart a course away from the heartless, divisive path Mr. Trump has put us on.

Mr. Trump set this chaos in motion and if reelected will accelerate it, letting extremists call the shots. There won’t be anything holding him back, and the agenda of his extremist supporters is quite clear:

a national ban overriding state laws;
opposition to an exception for IVF in abortion bans, calling such an exception a “license to kill”;
actions by a new Trump Administration, including using the Comstock Act, to undue the approval of a key drug and stop the mailing medications to end a pregnancy, while they work to pass federal legislation.

With President Biden’s reelection we have the opportunity to find where we have unity and build out from there. Again, one goal we can all agree on is reducing the need for the procedure. One way is to make birth control pills available over-the-counter, which President Biden’s administration has done.

Let’s work to make the procedure safe, legal, and rare, and prevent other families from experiencing what Kate and Justin Cox went through to prevent her unborn baby girl from suffering and to preserve her ability to have more babies in the future. Let’s not let extreme court decisions unleashed by the overturning of Roe v. Wade bar childless couples or those wanting to expand their families like Elissa and Taylor Smith from having a baby through IVF.

In all of this we must recover our compassion and let women and families have the space and care they need in these trying circumstances.

We must protect the health of pregnant women having miscarriages, ensure the ability of doctors to provide standard medical care during pregnancy, and defend the hope of childless couples and moms to have a baby through IVF.