Ectopic Pregnancy and Abortion Bans

Bills in state legislatures in Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio and Missouri are not yet laws, but now that the question of abortion law is in the state legislatures, it is anyone's guess which legislatures and which governors will finally take that leap into the ultimate save-the-fetus oblivion.

It took some Googling to finally discern that despite impassioned arguments from Right to Life advocates in these states, no law has yet actually been signed into law, although it may only be a matter of time.

Of course, part of the problem is state legislators are often no better educated than Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor Greene, and when you attach the word "pregnancy" to anything, they want to save it.

An ectopic pregnancy is, of course, not really a pregnancy, if you define pregnancy as the product of conception which would, if left alone, grow into a baby and be delivered as a live child.

An actual pregnancy, which has any  chance of surviving long enough to be developed enough to be delivered and possibly survive, is different from a conceptus which will grow inside the fallopian tube for a few weeks to months until it grows big enough to pop that balloon and rupture, resulting in the end of its growth and the exsanguination of the mother--exsanguinate, as in, "bleed to death." And of course, no living mother, no living "baby."

The fallopian tube is not a uterus and cannot contain, support or tolerate a fetus growing in it for long, and it explodes, like an internal hand grenade, with just as devastating results for the woman in whom it is growing.  A "ruptured ectopic" is a medical emergency and virtually 100% of the time results in the death of the mother and, if you believe the fetus is even alive at that time, the death of the fetus. 

Every medical student learns this. 

Not every legislator, apparently, learns this.

When presented with this information legislators in Ohio, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas have replied, "Oh, then, it's God's will." 

It is a revelation of the mind of the Right to Life extremist that he or she is willing to see a woman die rather than deviate from the belief that the "life" of the "child" must be preserved at all costs. 

The absolutist has to be consistent. And if you value "life," well then, you must value ALL life, including that thing, that conceptus, that thing you might call a fetus or a child, which is growing in a spot which is like a baby crawling across an eight lane freeway at rush hour--it's just not going to make it. 

But you have staked out the position that you will protect that baby no matter what, even if it means diverting all the traffic in both directions into Lake Pontchartrain. That baby cannot be sacrificed. The mother's life can be sacrificed, and with it, of course, any chance that growing mass of cells you are calling a baby will be lost, but you will not have taken any action to end the development of that conceptus. 

You have remained consistent. You will not intervene in that doomed slow motion train wreck.

Well, Justice Alito wanted the voters in state legislatures to decide questions of abortion, and now we've got that.