{"id":6998,"date":"2026-10-20T13:05:52","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T17:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/?p=6998"},"modified":"2026-10-20T13:05:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T17:05:52","slug":"miscarriage-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/10\/20\/miscarriage-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting Abortion Advocate Predictions Regarding Miscarriage Care"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Abernathy<\/a>

Abernathy and baby<\/p><\/div>\n

by Jacqueline Harvey Abernathy, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. As a mother of eight, only two of whom survived to birth, I am well aware of how devastating losing a baby is, especially\u00a0 since I\u2019ve dedicated myself for decades to pass laws that protect all pre-born children from dying from abortion violence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In all those years of activism, I never imagined that the 2021 reversal of Roe v. Wade<\/em> would result in abortion advocates weaponizing my deceased children to wish me harm for my part in passing laws that protect women and children alike.<\/p>\n

Since the Dobbs<\/em> decision, I have repeatedly been told by people how they wish more of my babies would die naturally in miscarriage and maybe even die myself from unnecessarily delayed medical care that they blame squarely on the laws I helped pass and uphold in court as an expert witness against the abortion industry.<\/p>\n

Reacting to the Reversal of Roe <\/strong><\/h3>\n

and Subsequent Attacks on Mourning Mothers<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Although I supported and helped implement the reversal of Roe v. Wade<\/em>, I never truly believed it would prevail or that, once it did, my miscarriages and those of fellow moms in mourning would be wielded against\u00a0 in protest of losing legal abortion access nationwide.<\/p>\n

Over my many decades in the movement, I\u2019ve seen through a disheartening host of supposedly benevolent rationales for legal feticide. They color abortion violence as merciful toward women in crisis, children with disabilities, and so on. The reversal of Roe v. Wade<\/em>\u00a0 inspired a similar campaign that focused instead on women like me, who\u2019ve lost children by chance but for the express purpose of championing killing children by choice.<\/p>\n

I immediately observed a swathe of disingenuous and misleading headlines by those who support killing children no different or less precious than the sons and daughters I have buried over the years. They use other moms in mourning the same deceitful way, attempting to elicit sympathy by feigning empathy for our anguish without actually caring at all about us or out children.<\/p>\n

Misrepresenting Miscarriage Care as Equivalent to Elective Abortion<\/strong><\/h3>\n

All of these supposed concerns for mourning mothers didn\u2019t come from anyone except those who advocate elective abortion. They all claimed to be deeply concerned about my health and safety should I face another loss, since miscarriage management can involve the same drugs and surgical interventions to deliver a deceased child or evacuate retained tissue.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m unfortunately well-acquainted with these treatments because I have needed medical intervention in most of my losses. I\u2019ve experienced an ectopic pregnancy, two chemical pregnancies and three missed miscarriages, one where I needed emergency care after laboring at home failed to deliver the baby.<\/p>\n

There was another where I had to induce labor with misoprostol because my use of progesterone to hopefully prevent another loss was unnaturally preventing my body from recognizing that I had already lost my child a few weeks earlier.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also undergone a dilation and curettage (D&C) after losing my seventh child. This ironically took place at a Catholic hospital under the care of my Catholic OB\/GYN on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade <\/em>the year before it finally fell.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The demagogues insisted that laws protecting children from intentional, violent destruction with these drugs and procedures might make legitimate, therapeutic access to treatment more cumbersome.<\/p>\n

I was strongly warned that the Dobbs<\/em> decision would assuredly interfere with this type of necessary, emergency treatment that I needed to heal. The subtext: they\u2019ve banned abortions, so labor-inducing drugs and uterine evacuation surgeries won\u2019t exist for women when they need them. As if women who need legitimate medical care to manage a pregnancy loss must go to abortion clinics for treatment instead of the hospital or their OB\/GYN. We do not. We never have.<\/p>\n

Manipulating Medical Language<\/strong><\/h3>\n

to Conflate Killing With Legitimate Life-Saving Treatment<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The claim went beyond how miscarriage care and abortion are similar into a pervasive misinformation campaign. Abortion advocates mischaracterize the commonplace care women receive for pregnancy loss as functionally no different than abortion violence.<\/p>\n

This myth is based in easily manipulated medical terminology. The abrupt end of a pregnancy is abortion, either one that happens naturally where the child\u2019s tragic death can\u2019t be prevented (a spontaneous abortion), or one that\u2019s chosen that deliberately kills a child who would most likely survive if simply left alone (an induced abortion). The former we informally call miscarriage while the latter truly is an abortion.<\/p>\n

Calling both abortion without a description equates the unavoidable loss of a wanted child who died of natural causes with purposely killing an unwanted child using chemicals or a curette. They drop the critical modifier “spontaneous” or “induced” and just call everything an abortion and present miscarriage and killing as technically the same.<\/p>\n

Broad use of the word \u201cabortion\u201d without that distinction conveniently equates the intentional ending of a pregnancy by lethal violence with the unintentional ending of a pregnancy from uninduced fetal demise to make a child dying by chance comparable to a child dying by choice.<\/p>\n

This is like saying that losing a spouse to anaphylaxis from an unknown nut allergy is the same as hiding their Epi-pen before force-feeding them a PB & J. A murderous spouse doesn\u2019t inspire the same level of sympathy as a grieving widow. Nor does the deliberate killing of a child compare to mournfully laying them to rest.<\/p>\n

Therefore, my greatest pain becomes a prime opportunity to assert that abortion bans are not just about women who got pregnant but don\u2019t want their babies so they say abortion bans are dangerous for poor, heartbroken mothers like me who wanted their babies more than anything and will physically and emotionally suffer if we don\u2019t allow abortions for everyone.<\/p>\n

Ill-Wishes for Pro-Life Women Have Turned Into<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies Harming All Women<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve watched the hypothetical fear-mongering about potential future pregnancy loss used against mourning mothers turn into real-world exploitation of actual women and their very real, very missed deceased children. I was incensed at so many abortion advocates feigning concern for mothers like me, women who mourn our children we couldn’t save despite our utmost efforts.<\/p>\n

They use our misfortune as a manipulation tactic. We know it is insincere, since there are never calls to reform the laws to protect mothers suffering from miscarriage but only calls to repeal abortion laws completely as the supposed only means to that end. Until that end is achieved, taking advantage of grieving mothers to advance their agenda is clearly more important to them than we are.<\/p>\n

If any abortion policies I helped lobby into law have unintentionally harmed women suffering the pain of miscarriage (a pain I know all too well), I would be the first person calling for reform. Not just to protect these women but also to protect myself. But the bottom line is there is nothing in state abortion laws that preclude the medical removal of a deceased child.<\/p>\n

There is nothing to reform and frankly, any lies that can be fabricated from miscarriage victims into propaganda to repeal abortion laws is far more useful to their agenda.<\/p>\n

There are catastrophic stories where women have suffered and died from delayed miscarriage care that predates the fall of Roe<\/em> because medical malpractice and neglect have been problems throughout human history. We hear more about these tragedies now because they make good political talking points.<\/p>\n

Abortion laws are now blamed opportunistically, when instead the blame belongs squarely on negligent doctors who try to shift their guilt onto the policies, citing ambiguity regarding when they could lawfully intervene.<\/p>\n

Efforts to ensure that laws are clear and unobstructive to medical judgment to protect women becomes improbable, though, when there\u2019s an entire movement resolved to vindicate their prediction that abortion bans will jeopardize actual medical care for women. Attempts to blame abortion laws overshadow valid concerns that absolutely do need to be addressed in order to be alleviated rather than propped up as political talking points.<\/p>\n

There is no reason, medical or otherwise, for the denial of life-saving healthcare when a pre-born child is not deceased or nonviable and threatens the life or health of their mother.<\/p>\n

If there actually is ambiguity regarding when doctors can save women’s lives in a medical crisis, it is this confusion that needs to change, not laws that save the lives of children when no one has to die. The only people suggesting there is a trade-off are those who want only women protected when senselessly killing their children goes wrong.<\/p>\n

The Only Way to Protect Pregnant Women <\/strong><\/h3>\n

is to Protect Their Unborn Children<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I resent the lie that pits mothers against our own babies as if we were somehow adversaries instead of family. My support of abortion regulations has never been protecting unborn children at the expense of their mothers but to protect babies and mothers alike. It was never either\/or. It was always both.<\/p>\n

The truth is: protecting unborn children protects their mothers. When laws deem any lives disposable, that is when everyone suffers.<\/p>\n

=================================<\/p>\n

For more perspectives on miscarriages, see:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Hospital\u2019s Attitude Adds to Couple\u2019s Heartbreak<\/a><\/p>\n

Tear Gas and Miscarriages<\/a><\/p>\n

Threats to the Unborn Beyond Abortion<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jacqueline Harvey Abernathy, Ph.D. October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. As a mother of eight, only two of whom survived to birth, I am well aware of how devastating losing a baby is, especially\u00a0 since I\u2019ve dedicated myself for decades to pass laws that protect all pre-born children from dying from abortion… <\/p>\n