Abortion Ban Stories Are Worse Than Anyone Imagined

Laura Bassett: “Reproductive rights advocates have long warned that women would die if abortion were banned again—that children would be forced to give birth to their rapists’ babies. I’ve been covering abortion rights for over a decade, and I expected these horrifying, dystopian stories to trickle out over the next six months to maybe a year, forcing people to acknowledge a reality that had long been just hypothetical.”

“Instead, the stories have sprayed out like a firehose: A 10-year-old rape survivor had to travel to another state to get safe abortion care, and politicians immediately went after the doctor who helped her; a Texas hospital let a woman with an ectopic pregnancy bleed until she almost died to avoid getting sued; Idaho Republicans overwhelmingly voted to let women die before giving them care. The dystopia is upon us, and it arrived faster than anyone expected.”