Texas Is Imagineering Abortion 'Complications' To Back Up Its Lies About Abortion

Surely no one will notice, except for everyone who already has.

One of the very annoying things about abortion, for people who are against abortion, is that abortions are very safe and people almost never regret them. In fact, studies have shown that five years after an abortion, nearly everyone who has one says it was the right decision for them.

In a perfect world, for them, those who had them would suffer lifelong health complications and severe depression and regret. That way, they could claim that actually the most "pro-woman" thing they could do would be to take our reproductive choices away and force us to bear children whether we want to or not.

Texas, however, is doing the next best thing. As reported by Jessica Valenti's Abortion, Every Day Substack newsletter, the state now requires doctors to report basically any issue experienced by anyone who has had an abortion at any point in their life as a "complication" of that abortion. Texas law lists 28 medical issues as possible complications of abortion, many of which have no actual known direct link to abortion.

(1) shock;
(2) uterine perforation;
(3) cervical laceration;
(4) hemorrhage;
(5) aspiration or allergic response;
(6) infection;
(7) sepsis;
(8) death of the patient;
(9) incomplete abortion;
(10) damage to the uterus;
(11) an infant born alive after the abortion;
(12) blood clots resulting in pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis;
(13) failure to actually terminate the pregnancy;
(14) pelvic inflammatory disease;
(15) endometritis;
(16) missed ectopic pregnancy;
(17) cardiac arrest;
(18) respiratory arrest;
(19) renal failure;
(20) metabolic disorder;
(21) embolism;
(22) coma;
(23) placenta previa in subsequent pregnancies;
(24) preterm delivery in subsequent pregnancies;
(25) fluid accumulation in the abdomen;
(26) hemolytic reaction resulting from the administration of ABO-incompatible blood or blood products;
(27) adverse reactions to anesthesia or other drugs; or
(28) any other adverse event as defined by the United States Food and Drug Administration's criteria provided by the MedWatch Reporting System.

Under the threat of possibly losing their license, doctors in Texas are required to submit private patient information into this database without the patient's knowledge and regardless of whether or not it was actually caused by the abortion. This applies to every physician a patient sees, so if they see more than one doctor about an issue, both doctors are required to report — meaning that one "adverse event" that isn't even an adverse event could be reported multiple times.

MORE:  Should Biden, FDA Just Ignore Upcoming Rightwing Hack Abortion-Pill-Banning Judge Ruling? 

The point of this is not only to back up their ridiculous abortion bans, but to make forced birth enthusiasts feel good about themselves. They don't like the fact that every time they make up some stupid thing about abortion, doctors and psychologists come out in droves to say "No, that's wrong, this doesn't happen," so they want medical data to back this up.

 As Valenti explains:  

Feigning academic seriousness has inarguably made it easier for anti-choice activists to lobby politicians and influence court decisions, but the anti-abortion movement still hasn’t been able to break through into the medical mainstream: Every time anti-choice organizations spread a new lie about the dangers of abortion, the scientific community shuts them down . [...]

And that’s the rub; while anti-abortion activists have successfully seeded misinformation in conservative legislation and culture, actual experts have never found their ‘science’ credible. (It doesn’t help, of course, that conservatives are in the habit of reminding Americans how little they know about reproductive health via a steady stream of unfortunate gaffes .)

The anti-abortion movement knows that people don’t trust them when it comes to women’s bodies.That’s what makes abortion complication reports so politically valuable.This is data submitted by independent physicians—reports that conservatives will claim were objectively collected. No need to mention that the doctors were pressured to report under threat of losing their jobs!

There is almost no procedure that doesn't come with the possibility of complications. Plastic surgery comes with the possibility of complications. Colonoscopies come with the possibility of complications. Getting wisdom teeth extracted comes with the possibility of complications. Hell, when I used to pierce ears at Claire's we had to give people a little pamphlet informing them about the possibilities of complications, including allergic reactions, keloids, bacterial infections, etc. Coolsculpting, a fat freezing procedure, can cause horrific deformities, as it did with Linda Evangelista . Pedicures, frankly, come with the risk of far more serious complications than do abortions. I've never heard of someone having to get their leg amputated after an abortion. I'm dead serious, do not let them turn the bubbles on, never shave your legs beforehand, and never, never, never let them razor your calluses off — if it's that bad, just Baby Foot it (Wonkette cut link).

Life, in general, comes with the possibility of complications. We all understand this. What Texas is trying to do, however, is make it look like abortion is far more dangerous than it actually is, in order to back up an agenda. They could do literally the same thing with any other procedure in order to make it look dangerous.

It's legitimately frightening that they can't just be happy with having won this one. They can't just be happy with having overturned Roe , they have to turn every vagina and uterus and doctor's office into a full-on police state.

The thing is, they can have all the pretend data they want. If everyone knows how it was collected, it's still not going to be seen as legitimate by anyone with half a brain — which is what they were hoping for with this. The main effect of this, ultimately, is that ob-gyns and physicians in general are not going to want to practice in a state where they can't treat their patients without playing this game or risking their jobs. It's not worth it! Already, 71 counties in Texas don't have a hospital, over half don't have an ob-gyn and 25 don't have a single physician. Already, ob-gyn applications for residencies in Texas and other anti-abortion states have dropped 10 percent and many practicing ob-gyns have already left.

Alas, it's going to be pretty hard to paint abortions as being the more dangerous option when there are so few ob-gyns and regular physicians in Texas that they're probably going to have to bring back barber surgeons to deliver babies and provide other forms of medical treatment.

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