By Hanna Stock
A new law expanding abortion rights in New York, sparks a political ongoing debate about later abortions.
The Reproductive Health Act, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Liz Krueger, says that a health care practitioner “may perform an abortion when, according to the practitioner’s reasonable and good faith professional judgment based on the facts of the patient’s case: the patient is within twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.”
Previously, women in New York could only get abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy if their lives were threatened said Krueger spokesperson Justin Flagg.
Flagg said that under the new law women could also get an abortion after 24 weeks if their health is threatened or the fetus isn’t viable.
The new law also moves abortion regulations from the state’s criminal code to the health code, removing the threat of criminal prosecution for medical professionals who perform abortions, according to The New York Times.
Not much has changed from the previous law from 1970, so what is fueling this ongoing political debate between abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion activists?
President Donald Trump tweeted that “Democrats are becoming the Party of late term abortion, high taxes, Open Borders and Crime!”
Abortion rights activists are refuting these statements by expressing that the law only allows the late term abortion if the baby and mother are both at risk, not just because the mother decides she doesn’t want her child anymore.
The Guttmacher Institute finds that “slightly more than 1 percent of abortions are performed at 21 weeks or later.” In a study of abortions in the United States in 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported that 1.3 percent of abortions happened at 21 weeks or later.
“It’s not for everyone,” said Erika Christensen, an abortion rights advocate. “It’s for people after 24 weeks who find themselves with either bad pregnancy indications for the fetus or threats to their own health.”
Christensen, who lives in New York and shared her story with Jezebel, had an abortion at 32 weeks. She traveled to Colorado to get an abortion in the third trimester of her pregnancy in 2016 after doctors told her the fetus she was carrying had a rare compounded muscular condition that would be fatal soon after birth.
“It wasn’t until the 30th week that we got the very dire information that the fetus would not be able to breathe on the outside of my body,” Christensen said. “The way we understand life, the way we reckon with our own morals and belief system, we did not want that outcome. For a baby to be born just to suffer for a few short moments before death. That did not sound like life to us. It did not sound like peace to us.”
She hopes that the new law means other women will have more options for health care than she did.
“In this particular case, with the law in New York, we’re generally talking about people who very much wanted to be parents and, were the circumstances different, absolutely would have been overjoyed to carry that pregnancy and bring the baby home,” said Christensen, who now has a 1-year-old daughter named Pepper, who she describes as “a pure and utter delight.”
The Reproductive Health Act permits abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy only if the mother’s life or health are threatened or if the fetus isn’t viable. Many people are assuming that the new law permits a late abortion no matter the health condition of the mother or baby, which is far from the truth.
The issue of abortion has always caused heated public debates. It’s important to stand up for what you believe in, but don’t spread false information to further your political agenda.
