[HN Gopher] Texas banned abortion, then sepsis rates soared
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Texas banned abortion, then sepsis rates soared
Author : mooreds
Score : 127 points
Date : 2025-02-20 14:24 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.propublica.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.propublica.org)
| Xunjin wrote:
| I did two years of nurse graduation, and one of the discussions
| that we had in Public Health classes was that Abortion will be
| done whether you think it is ethical/moral or not. It's time to
| start treating this from a scientific perspective to avoid the
| life losses, this procedure done in a clandestine clinic is a
| high-risk life threat for the Mother.
|
| It's clear, in the Health community, that pregnancy can be
| avoided with contraceptives and instructing the population
| (adults and teenagers) on how to deal with this issue.
|
| Not only that, but it's tragic that we have such a good
| organization, WHO, which does instruct on how to deal with this,
| and yet we ignore because of beliefs of "pro-life" movements
| which in the end kill the infant's mother.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| The thing is the people who are for abortion bans think if a
| person gets an abortion and becomes sick from it, they get what
| they deserve.
|
| So from a scientific perspective, they don't care, all they
| care about is a fetus being born, not well cared for, not born
| to a family that wants it, not born healthily, just born.
| Science has no place in their philosophy.
| cagenut wrote:
| the cruelty is the point
| Kelvin506 wrote:
| They can't grasp that miscarriages, which occur for many
| reasons even in healthy people, have exactly the same
| emergent medical care needs as abortions. Laws banning
| abortions usually also interfere with (if not outright block)
| access to necessary care.
|
| It's a textbook example of how theocracy is wholly incapable
| of sound public governance.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| Until the mid-late 1800s, abortions were legal, and even
| allowed by the Catholic Church until "quickening" (when you
| were able to feel the fetus kicking/moving).
|
| Abortion became illegal and started to get "theocratized"
| for business interests by the American Medical Association
| for regulatory capture of "physician services" and push out
| homeopaths and midwives where were the administers of
| abortion drugs. The AMA lobbied congress and Congress
| passed the Comstock Act of 1873, and finally made abortion
| illegal in 1880.
|
| Prior to these, abortion was not only legal, but it was not
| even considered immoral. It was just a fact of life.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| The AMA really is the gift that keeps on giving. They're
| right up there with police unions.
| boredhedgehog wrote:
| > Until the mid-late 1800s, abortions were legal, and
| even allowed by the Catholic Church until "quickening"
| (when you were able to feel the fetus kicking/moving).
|
| No, the Church has never allowed abortion. When gradual
| ensoulment of the fetus was the dominant scientific
| theory, the quickening marked the difference between
| homicide and murder.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| I'm going to get hate for this, but here's my perspective.
|
| I used to be pro-choice because I thought the motivation for
| pro-life was religion, and I thought that had no place in
| determining what others can do.
|
| Eventually I started to see abortion as something closer to
| murder. Obviously it's much more complicated than that, but,
| to me, I view the fetus as a person, even if they aren't born
| yet.
|
| There are absolutely cases where abortion can be justified,
| e.g. for the health of the mother, or if the mother didn't
| make the choice to have sex (for example, rape). In this case
| I feel like it's still murder; it's just a terrible situation
| overall.
|
| In other cases though, I don't see why abortion should be
| assisted. Yes, people will try to terminate in other ways.
| That sucks, but there's no reason why we should be helping
| people murder other people just because they might hurt
| themselves otherwise.
|
| There are a lot of other arguments (like what if the child is
| born into a terrible situation) that are relevant but IMO at
| that point you're essentially asking who deserves to live.
|
| Definitely open to conversation on this/feel free to link any
| articles that you think might change my mind.
| Xunjin wrote:
| That's why focusing on prevention is the way. And let me
| make a counter-argument for the sake of the discussion:
|
| Imagine a mother who had to give birth to her child and had
| to care until its adult life, in an abusive way,
| mistreating the child, hating that one human being and
| treating like garbage. What is worse, the "murder" of the
| child or raising someone in those conditions?
|
| The hypocrisy here is that most of the pro-life movement
| wants the child to be born but does not care at all when
| it's in the world.
|
| This video[0] shows an example of a politician how empathy
| makes you realize your error. Every so often, you have your
| view of the world, but how is important is your view in the
| expanse of the others?
|
| 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcGQdHj7fk
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| > What is worse, the "murder" of the child or raising
| someone in those conditions?
|
| Should we just begin murdering anyone who might not have
| a life that we define as good?
|
| That's essentially the argument that I'm hearing, except
| you're limiting the scope to unborn children.
|
| Though, I do completely understand your point. I just
| think that even in the worst of circumstances someone
| would generally prefer to live. I didn't have a
| particularly happy upbringing, and there were times I
| wanted to commit suicide, but I'm quite happy with where
| I'm at now.
| jaredklewis wrote:
| I'm pro-choice, and one way I think about it is that I want
| to reduce suffering of children. I have children and I feel
| reasonably confident that they are capable of extreme
| suffering. We have imperfect information and there is no
| bright line between fetus and child (it's just a continuous
| development), but I strongly suspect that a fetus at say, 5
| weeks, is less capable of suffering than a child.
|
| So imagine a situation where a mother and father have a
| falling out. By week 6 the mother feels there is no future
| in the relationship and feels she can't offer the coming
| child a good childhood on her own. I feel if a child is
| unwanted by the parents, they are more likely to suffer.
|
| So in this sense, abortion can be a form of harm reduction.
| It does not reduce ALL harm, but reduces the net-harm
| across all parties.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Here's a snippet from another reply I wrote:
|
| Should we encourage abortions for single mothers because
| their child might not have a happy life? Should we abort
| fetuses who have some disability? I'm sure that any of
| those individuals, once born, would prefer to live
| regardless of circumstance.
| richie_adler wrote:
| > Should we encourage abortions for single mothers
| because their child might not have a happy life?
|
| Yes.
|
| > Should we abort fetuses who have some disability?
|
| If the parents are unwilling or unable to deal with it
| every day for the rest of their life, yes.
|
| > I'm sure that any of those individuals, once born,
| would prefer to live regardless of circumstance.
|
| That's too big an assumption. But, in any case, not being
| born, and not having a working brain capable of abstract
| thought and understanding of the situation, nor a way to
| express it, they don't get a vote.
| orbisonitrum wrote:
| Life is filled with grey scales, if you only see things in
| black or white you are not looking hard enough. Abortion
| may be a tragedy. Having to give birth to an unwanted child
| may be a tragedy. Having to give up your child because you
| lack the capacity to care for it may be a tragedy. Growing
| up as an unwanted child may be a tragedy.
|
| Abortions are a way to provide choice to people in tough
| situations. We have built a world where a lot of people are
| unable to care for their children in a decent way. In my
| opinion, that is the crime here.
|
| Blaming these people and calling them murderers, or forcing
| them into parenthood is just cruel.
| mejthemage wrote:
| Where does "providing a choice to people in tough
| situations" end? When is it wrong to terminate a life
| because you're in a tough situation?
| Xunjin wrote:
| That's the point of any ethical/moral discussions. Is
| self-defence a situation that does allow you to kill
| another person?
|
| Does a mother who forgets to pull the hand break of the
| car and kills her son, should do jail time?
|
| Does a police officer who shots and kills a person which
| is in a degraded mental state but threats his life, be
| accused of murdering?
|
| Does a police officer who shoots a known murderer
| fugitive without following the standard procedure be
| prosecuted as a homicide?
|
| See the point?
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Most would prefer tragedy and suffering over death
| hazmazlaz wrote:
| Fetuses aren't people (it could be argued that they become
| people some time between the second and third trimester,
| but that's not really relevant because D&C is almost never
| done in the third trimester). Pregnant women are people.
| Does a pregnant woman somehow magically lose rights once
| she becomes pregnant? If the answer is yes, pregnant women
| do lose rights, then how much? What weight do you put on
| the rights of a hypothetical person-to-be compared to a
| fully alive not at all hypothetical pregnant woman?
|
| >>>IMO at that point you're essentially asking who deserves
| to live.
|
| The answer is the pregnant woman. She is the one who
| deserves to live, every time, full stop.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| My view is that fetuses are people.
|
| > Does a pregnant woman somehow magically lose rights
| once she becomes pregnant? If the answer is yes, pregnant
| women do lose rights, then how much?
|
| Nobody is losing rights. Nobody has the right to end the
| life of another barring cases like self-defense.
|
| The mother made a choice (ignoring cases of rape) to have
| sex which could, even with contraceptives, lead to the
| outcome pregnancy.
|
| > What weight do you put on the rights of a hypothetical
| person-to-be compared to a fully alive not at all
| hypothetical pregnant woman?
|
| IMO, both parties deserve to live. If a fetus threatens
| the mother it should be terminated for her health. If the
| fetus doesn't, then the mother shouldn't (morally) have
| an abortion.
|
| > The answer is the pregnant woman. She is the one who
| deserves to live, every time, full stop.
|
| You're missing the point of my question about "who
| deserves to live". Should we encourage abortions for
| single mothers because their child might not have a happy
| life? Should we abort fetuses who have some disability?
| I'm sure that any of those individuals, once born, would
| prefer to live regardless of circumstance.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Nobody is losing rights. Nobody has the right to end
| the life of another barring cases like self-defense.
|
| The common example of the violinist analogy disagrees
| here. You are under no obligation to provide continuing
| physical support to another person, even one _everyone_
| agrees is fully grown /sentient/alive/etc. Similarly, you
| are under no obligation to donate your
| liver/kidney/blood, even if you already promised to do
| so, even if not doing so will cause someone's death. In
| every case except abortion, we respect medical bodily
| autonomy to an extreme degree. And indeed in other cases
| we often find it immoral to force someone to assist a
| family member's survival on an ongoing basis (see "Savior
| Siblings").
|
| > I'm sure that any of those individuals, once born,
| would prefer to live regardless of circumstance.
|
| Not always, lots of people desire medically assisted
| suicide. Blanket assuming that everyone desires to live
| regardless of circumstance is factually incorrect.
| credit_guy wrote:
| > And indeed in other cases we often find it immoral to
| force someone to assist a family member's survival on an
| ongoing basis.
|
| This is incorrect. Parents have a duty to care of their
| children. Parents whose children die because of parental
| neglect end in prison.
| couchdb_ouchdb wrote:
| I would urge you to watch this movie:
|
| 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1032846/
|
| It made me change my mind.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| I'll take a look
| zzo38computer wrote:
| The situation is more complicated than most "pro-life" and
| "pro-choice" are believing (like most stuff is; it is not
| only abortion that does). Like other things, it is worth
| making a discussion, from multiple points of view.
|
| I think that some of the considerations being made such as
| whether or not the fetus is human is not really so
| relevant, and is missing the point. The child being born
| into a terrible situation is not really the point either
| (or at least, is not really the most important point),
| since there will be better ways to deal with that.
|
| I am against abortion in general, but many of the bans of
| abortion are way too excessive (banning discussion and
| communication of information about such things, allowing to
| sue people without evidence, etc, are probably excessive
| regardless of what is being banned, though). If abortion
| seems necessary in this case, the government should not
| interfere with it (doing so will just make it more messy
| than it needs to be). However, it is generally better to
| avoid being pregnant at first, if you are able to do that;
| and I think that people should not try to have too many
| children anyways (during these days); such prevention
| before you are pregnant is better than afterward, isn't it?
|
| But you should still have the right to your own body
| anyways, and if you are pregnant then before the child is
| born it is still your body. (There is mistreatment of your
| own body, but still you properly would have the right to
| it.)
|
| A better way for the law to handle is that the policies can
| reduce the need for abortion, rather than trying to affect
| it directly.
|
| And, sometimes is necessary, that you will value the actual
| life rather than the potential life, anyways; but, if the
| mother instead wishes to risk such a birth that might not
| work and will harm her, that will be her choice to accept
| or not accept such a risk, I think. I do believe that
| abortion is "immoral", but that actual situations are not
| always ideal situations so that such a thing might be
| necessary sometimes anyways.
|
| Doctors should still provide necessary care anyways. (I
| think the Catholic church does allow necessary emergency
| medical procedures that will save the mother even if they
| have abortion as a side effect, anyways (and yet, many
| people still don't like that either). Even then, not
| everyone is or should be Catholic or whatever religion, but
| that does not make the Catholic church worthless either,
| even though they (like many large organizations) have done
| many bad things too.)
|
| I think that many "pro-life" is not a real "pro-life"; they
| are "pro human birth" without the other consideration.
| However, this is not true of everyone, so you should not
| assume that everyone is the same, because it isn't. A real
| "pro-life" should pro any life including those who have
| already been born and also the non-human animal and plant
| life. (Deliberate abortion of humans birth is one thing,
| but some people like it is more important than everything
| else and than all other life and that does not make sense
| and it is wrong.)
| 16bytes wrote:
| > I view the fetus as a person, even if they aren't born
| yet.
|
| What changed my mind here was the realization that this
| position comes out of Catholic doctrine that defines "a
| person" at the moment of conception. Once you made that
| assumption, it's reasonable to say that abortion ends a
| person's life (aka murder).
|
| This assumption doesn't match biology, however. In the
| first trimester, it simply isn't a person yet. It's not a
| proto-person, and it's not simply a cake that needs to
| finish baking in the oven. Becoming a person takes active
| work by the mother's body that isn't completed until well
| into the pregnancy. You could call that point "viability",
| but it's not a precise instant in time.
|
| If there's no person yet, then it's the mother's body and
| it's up to that person what they choose to do with their
| body, just like in every other instance of bodily autonomy.
|
| It's obviously OK if you believe in the same doctrine, but
| then it's also not a simple case of ethics anymore.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| Not everyone who's pro-choice is able to make their peace
| with this fact or willing to say it aloud, but yeah,
| abortion often is basically murder (not in the common law
| sense) and that's OK.
| lieks wrote:
| I agree that abortion is evil, but in my perception, once
| someone gets to a situation where they're willing to murder
| their own child, it won't be a law that'll stop them.
|
| This problem should be considered moral, not legal.
| sepositus wrote:
| It comes down to how you interpret the sanctity of life,
| and your worldview usually governs that. A materialistic
| worldview, which denies any and all spirituality, is likely
| to take a purely scientific stance and assert a fetus is
| not human. Meanwhile, worldviews that see procreation as a
| gift from a higher power will naturally push back against
| that assertion.
|
| The only common ground that seems to be available between
| these two camps is in extreme cases (i.e., the mother's
| life is at risk or rape). Otherwise, I think they are
| fundamentally incompatible.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| But why is that your choice? Do you also think IVF should
| be illegal? We are already seeing the end state of giving
| the government power over a woman's body.
|
| I had a friend whose wife got pregnant and neither one of
| them knew beforehand how dangerous it would be for her.
| They definitely wanted the child. But his first priority
| was his wife. So if it had come down to an abortion or
| letting his wife die, he was going to choose an abortion.
|
| Even if the doctors thought it was the best course of
| action for the wife, the doctor would have still been
| afraid to do it because of criminal liability in todays
| environment in red states.
|
| My friend and his wife decided to induce labor two months
| early instead and take their chances. The baby is now a
| healthy 12 year old.
|
| After seeing what his wife went through, he decided to get
| a vasectomy and they adopted 5 years later.
| sepositus wrote:
| > The thing is the people who are for abortion bans think if
| a person gets an abortion and becomes sick from it, they get
| what they deserve.
|
| I hope you don't honestly hold that generalization to be
| true. I can think of several people who would immediately
| dismiss that as false, anyways.
| RhysU wrote:
| > It's clear, in the Health community, that pregnancy can be
| avoided with contraceptives and instructing the population
| (adults and teenagers) on how to deal with this issue.
|
| It's not clear to me that the Health community is winning that
| battle based on abortion rates.
|
| For 2023 Guttmacher estimates 1,037,000 abortions were provided
| by clinicians in states without total bans [1].
|
| Compare the 2022 CDC leading causes of death [2] which starts
| Heart disease: 702,880; Cancer: 608,371; ...
|
| That is, if one thinks of abortion as an avoidable disease it's
| one hell of a disease. And the rates suggest the Health
| community hasn't solved the root causes by a long shot.
|
| [1] https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-
| unite...
|
| [2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-
| death.htm
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > That is, if one thinks of abortion as an avoidable disease
| it's one hell of a disease. And the rates suggest the Health
| community hasn't solved the root causes by a long shot.
|
| It basically halved from 1990 to 2015, and has increased in
| correlation with prof-life policies like reduced access to
| education and contraception.
| zzzeek wrote:
| Here's my post from April 2023 flagged as "misinformation" where
| I state exactly the premise shown to be true by this study,
| followed by repeated badgering and threats that I was "spreading
| misinformation" breaking site rules:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35461613
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Just saw a TikTok post from a woman with an ectopic pregnancy
| being refused care by the Conway Medical Center (Conway, SC,
| near Myrtle Beach). Next day the post had been removed, with
| comments on other posts seeming to confirm that she had taken
| it down under legal threat from the hospital.
| guelo wrote:
| The biggest lie "conservatives" have spread is that the media
| is liberal.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Conservatives _own the media_.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| That 10000% tracks. Welcome to HN.
| noteabthiring wrote:
| This is a state with no exception for rape or incest, and castle
| doctrine and stand your ground rights to self defense.
|
| Forcing a raped woman to carry to term and parent for life
| exceeds the sentencing guidelines. When the state abuses the
| citizen beyond the sentencing guidelines, the citizen has the
| right to self defense using at least equal force.
|
| That is, don't persons denied abortions by the state have the
| right to trap their abusers into parenting a reminder of their
| trauma for life, in self defense?
|
| "Just put your kid up for adoption, to please God."
|
| In 2024, there were 391,098 kids in foster care hoping to be
| adopted or age out of the system. There are demographic breakdown
| by race(s) and preference(s).
|
| **
|
| It would not please a benevolent God to trap rape victims with a
| reminder of their trauma for life!
|
| It would not please a benevolent God to force children into a
| life of resentment and neglect!
|
| Is there a benevolent God? Not in law, no.
|
| Should the court admit that:
|
| God designed that humans would be the genetically disadvantaged
| incestuous products of Adam and his daughter Eve and their
| children?
|
| Genesis (Bible Chapter 1): Adam and Eve begat Cain and Abel, and
| then they violently fought and Cain slew Abel, but the third
| child was fine (*).
|
| Why must the church track genetic relations, in God's design?
| Isn't it criminally abusive to teach kids in public school that
| we're all the products of incest, which survived after God's
| drowning genocidal wrath toward God's own creations?
|
| Is it morally acceptable for God to drown everyone on Earth to
| fix God's design and keep testing free will?
|
| If God was qualified to be teaching about medical PPD, God should
| have instructed humans to _wash their hands before_ delivering
| babies* instead of instructing them to spread Kaneh Bosm (Holy
| Anointing Oil) all over the tabernacle or manger.)
|
| In 1865-1867 AD/CE, Joseph Lister discovered that sanitizing
| surgical instruments with carbolic acid - an antiseptic to
| prevent sepsis - reduced the number of post-surgical infections,
| amputations, and deaths.
|
| What has law, for childbirth and God?
| krapp wrote:
| Ironically, the Old Testament (which Christians consider the
| word of their God) only mentions abortion once, and it's a
| description of how to perform one with a weird magic spell if a
| woman is unfaithful to her husband (Numbers 5:11-31).
|
| Nowhere in the Bible does it say that abortion is a sin, or
| even of any concern to God at all. Although if one takes the
| Bible seriously, one has to accept that God is pro slavery and
| made women inferior to men.
|
| Which is why the Bible shouldn't be taken seriously. It has a
| few good moral precepts which can be found anywhere and a lot
| of bullshit that the Western world has been dragged down by for
| millennia.
| marcantonio wrote:
| Not sure how you read it that way but there is no mention of
| pregnancy or abortion there, and certainly no magic spell. If
| anything that ritual protects a woman from a jealous husband.
| Take a look at https://www.gotquestions.org/Numbers-
| abortion.html for more info.
|
| As for not taking the Bible seriously, this is just silly.
| Many prominent theists and atheists agree that the West was
| founded on the Christian ethic presented in the Bible, even
| if they don't agree on its divinity. You are swimming in
| Christian waters, my friend, whether you like it or not. Have
| a good rest of your day!
| lenerdenator wrote:
| This sort of legislation will continue to be passed across the
| nation until a consequence is introduced.
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