Born Alive
Sometimes a family learns their baby has a fatal diagnosis and will be born with only a short time to live. The decision of what to do next is one that only they can make.
Whether they decide to end the pregnancy early or continue it must be left to the family, not politicians.
How common
is it?
Live births are extremely rare, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
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The CDC data lacks information about individual cases, circumstances of the person's pregnancy, health, or the health of the fetus. This allows standard medical care and data to be distorted by abortion opponents.
These data are likely reflecting cases in which the person has a wanted pregnancy but is unable to continue it, where they make the decision with their doctor to end the pregnancy through induction of labor. Medically and for the public health records, these cases may be reported as an induced abortion and a “birth.”
Amid state abortion bans,
What's happening now?
What's happening now?
Aside from the usual moves made by Fake Clinics, harmful dis/mis-information all peddled by the GOP and anti-abortion opponents, "born alive" bills are being introduced, unnecessarily placing politicians between a patient and their doctor.
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Bills have been introduced since 2020. Thankfully, few have passed and been signed into law. The most current bill has been introduced in January of 2023. None have been introduced in New Mexico.
Bills
Bottom line— with these bills, politicians are threatening parents’ ability to decide the type of compassionate care that is best for their family and their faith, as we would allow them to do at any other point in their child’s life.
It is unfathomable that any elected official thinks that their moral authority to decide those final moments is more important than the family’s own beliefs.
Ok, but
Who does this affect?
Limiting access to both contraception and abortion, and the barriers fall harder on:
Black, Indigenous, people of color
Young people
Immigrants
LGBTQ+ people
People working to make ends meet due to systemic inequities in our health care system.
Even if we remove all barriers to birth control, abortion care will still be necessary and is an integral part of the full spectrum of health care. We must remove harmful barriers to both.
Bottom line, Patients need medically accurate information, not state-mandated deception, pressure, or shame.
Fight Back
Why?
When they say...
We say...
This inflammatory rhetoric furthers the agenda of outlawing all abortions: to push abortion out of reach, shut down clinics, and throw patients and providers in jail.
"Born Alive"
Do not repeat this!
"Abortions up to the "moment of birth”
"Abortion later in pregnancy"
“Infanticide” or “killing babies”
“Fetal anomaly” or “baby dying”
Their claims are false and that is simply not how abortion care works.
Murder of any person, including newborns, is already a crime, as it should be. Utilizing the language of anti-abortion opponents feeds their disinformation campaigns.
Navigating through
Difficult Conversations
Q: "If you're pro-abortion, do you support infanticide or killing babies?"
This insults and belittles the lived experiences of people who have faced these decisions. When it comes to abortion or pregnancy loss, no one knows what that person or their family are going through. I believe that every circumstance is different, and we should trust that person to do what is best for themselves and their families.
Q: "If you're pro-abortion, do you support abortion until the last moments of birth?"
Abortion later in pregnancy is rare, less than 1% of all cases. It's almost always because something has gone seriously wrong. But if someone wants to have an abortion, they should be able to get it as soon as they need, and we should trust them to make their own decisions.
Q: "Why does the CDC/certain states have records showing babies are born alive after an abortion"
The CDC data does contain little context about the individual cases, the circumstances of the person's pregnancy, their health, or the health of the fetus. These data are likely reflecting cases in which a woman has a wanted pregnancy but is unable to continue it, where she makes the decision with her doctor to end the pregnancy through induction of labor. Either way, we need to trust the data and the person who is going through this rather than the harmful rhetorics.