Mike Pence Wants Pregnant People to Endure Pointless Suffering and Risk—Even When the Fetus Won’t Survive

Staking out a horrifically extreme position that would pointlessly endanger lives, former Vice President Mike Pence says abortions should be banned even for pregnancies that aren’t viable. Such a ban would force pregnant people to carry pregnancies to term, even if there is no chance of the fetus surviving.

“I’m pro-life. I don’t apologize for it,” Pence, who announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in June, said in an interview with the Associate Press. Of course, his idea of “pro-life” completely ignores the risk to the lives of pregnant people, not to mention the trauma of continuing a pregnancy knowing there is little or no chance of a live delivery at the end.

Pence cited “many stories” he has supposedly heard of women who were told their pregnancies weren’t viable, only to magically deliver healthy babies at the end, but actual doctors refuted that claim. There are in fact some conditions that are undeniably incompatible with life, and others where the chance of survival is so slim that patients facing that news make the unbearably difficult decision to end their wanted pregnancies.

Since Pence wants to trade stories, though, let’s consider the stories of real women who went on the record about their nonviable pregnancies. (Be warned, the details are graphic and disturbing.) Terry, who shared her story with journalist Jessica Valenti, found out after a routine 15-week ultrasound that her fetus had not developed at all above the neck. With literally no head, it had zero chance of survival, but Terry lived in Texas, a state that has the kind of stringent abortion ban that Pence supports. Suffering from numerous health issues related to her nonviable pregnancy but not yet at death’s door as required by Texas law, she had to seek abortion care out of state before her health conditions became too dangerous or irreversible.

“It felt like my life didn’t matter, like I could just die and it would all be for nothing,” Terry told Valenti.

Behavioral scientist Caroline Orr Bueno shared a long tweet thread of similarly painful stories: a Texas woman who was repeatedly refused miscarriage care as she carried her dead fetus, a Florida woman whose fetus had fatal abnormalities but couldn’t access an abortion while its heart was still beating, a Louisiana woman who described the toll on her mental health of knowing she was carrying her fetus just “to bury it,” another Louisiana woman who hemorrhaged after being denied abortion care.

While every pregnancy has risks, experts have explained how nonviable pregnancies become even more dangerous. Obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Lillian Schapiro told CNN that as a fetus dies, it releases tissues into the patient’s bloodstream. Continuing the pregnancy can lead to sterility, organ failure, and death. So much for “erring on the side of life,” as Pence described his position to the AP.

So far Pence’s political rivals have declined to say whether they support banning abortion for nonviable pregnancies (and Pence did not provide any insight into how he would plan to enforce such a ban, whether he envisions criminal penalties for abortion providers and/or recipients) but the failure of existing state bans to accommodate such situations speaks for itself. Regardless of what various candidates are willing to admit publicly, the whole Republican Party has gotten on board with extreme abortion bans that force everyone from rape victims to children to carry their pregnancies to term, no matter the personal cost.

(via the Associated Press; featured image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)