People have a stronger reaction to second and third-trimester abortions than they do toward abortions that occur in the first trimester. Due to misconceptions and inaccurate language surrounding these procedures, many people don’t know much about how or why these abortions are performed.
Abortions after the first trimester are very uncommon. 91.4 percent of all abortions are performed within the first trimester, meaning that just over 8 percent occur after that point. And less than 2 percent of abortions are done once the 21-week mark is reached.
So why do people seek abortions at this stage in their pregnancy?
Some who identify themselves as pro-choice tell me that they support 20-week abortion bans because they think the family should have made up its mind by that point on whether they want to have a child. Ohio Gov. John Kasich recently signed legislation to ban all abortions after 20 weeks in Ohio. By 20 weeks, most people have decided they do want a child and discover there is some reason they cannot continue the pregnancy. Sometimes it is a birth defect that would make it impossible for the fetus to survive after birth, many of which are not detected until the 20th week of gestation, according to Tara Haelle of Forbes. Other times an issue is detected that would put the life of the mother at risk.
Another reason someone may need to get an abortion further along in their pregnancy is caused by other restrictions on abortion. A low-income individual living in an area without a clinic may have to save up enough money to travel to a clinic, stay in a hotel during the waiting period imposed on many people seeking abortions, and for the procedure itself, which also gets more expensive the further along the pregnancy is. This takes time. Even if a person decides they want an abortion as soon as they find out they are pregnant, it could take them months to be financially able to do so.
Oftentimes, people are also skeptical of the procedures used in later term abortions. President Donald Trump played on that during the last presidential debate in 2016 when he described the ability to “take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month on the final day,” in response to a question about “partial-birth abortions.” Phrases like “rip the baby out of the womb” and “partial birth abortions” don’t have any medical basis. They are political devices used to make later term abortion procedures seem much more violent and cruel than they actually are.
They also ignore the risks to the mother’s life that these procedures can pose. These risks include damage to the uterus, hemorrhaging, infection and increased risk of complication with future pregnancies. Though the risk of these issues isn't large, they are significant enough that no one decides to get an abortion at this stage without serious thought.
All of this goes to say that pregnant people don’t just wake up one morning late in their pregnancy and decide to get an abortion. Late-term abortions occur after serious, and often heartbreaking, developments in the health of the mother or the fetus.
