The Absurd Pregnancy Math behind the ‘Six-Week’ Abortion Ban
"Briefs Draw Battle Lines as Texas Abortion Law Nears Supreme Court "Texas Abortion Ban Goes Too Far For Even Some Republicans: ‘A Little Bit Extreme’"
The law the Supreme Court just failed to block is not just a blow to women; it’s biologically nonsensical
By Michelle Rodrigues on September 4, 2021
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage Getty Images
The Supreme Court recently upheld a Texas law that would be prevent patients from accessing abortion care after six weeks of pregnancy. There are many reasons this law is concerning—chiefly that it will do considerable harm to many people—but it is also based on bad biology. Pregnancy math is confusing, and it’s unclear whether legislators involved are simply ignorant on reproductive biology or recognize that it’s an indirect way to ban all abortions.
But in reality, the six-week ban limits abortion care to only four weeks after conception, and only one week, realistically, from when a person could find out they are pregnant. At this stage, an embryo has implanted and has a neural tube, and the blood vessel that will develop into the heart begins pulsing. This pulsing, or “heartbeat,” is the basis for the emotional appeal of these bills. But at this early stage, the embryo is still in the process of differentiating organs and won’t be classified as a “fetus” until about a month later.
The reason pregnancy math works so strangely is practical: it’s easier to pinpoint the first day of someone’s last period and count from that point as a standard marker because dates of ovulation and conception are harder to identify. But counting pregnancy as beginning during the last period includes two weeks prior to actual pregnancy and can inspire public health policy considering all women of reproductive age to be “pre-pregnant .. https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/cdcs-new-alcohol-guidelines-treat-all-women-pre-pregnant ,” such as health messages that recommend that all women of reproductive age abstain from alcohol. Given a lack of adequate education in health and biology—educational information that is often another target for evangelical Christians—some may think “six weeks of pregnancy” is plenty of time to realize you are pregnant. But at only four weeks post-conception, and three weeks post-implantation, there is a limited window to even affirm pregnancy.
This is where pregnancy math meets menstrual math, which is further complicated by the limits of hormonally detecting pregnancy. Menstrual math, or predicting when a “missed” period occurs, is often based on an assumed 28-day cycle. If you have a regular 28-day cycle, the expected missed period should happen two weeks after conception. That gives you about two weeks before that “six-week” threshold to take a pregnancy test and see your doctor. But it’s recommended that you wait for a week after your missed period to take a pregnancy test, because if you take it too early, you may get a false negative. Pregnancy tests measure human chorionic gonadatropin (hCG), a hormone produced after implantation. Though it can be potentially detected shortly after implantation, at about a week after conception and “three weeks” pregnant, it may not build up to detectable levels until a couple of weeks later. Thus, for patients with a predictable 28-day cycle, there is only about one week before the “six-week” threshold to confirm pregnancy. For someone who knows they want an abortion, taking a test, getting confirmation from a health care provider and having the abortion would have to occur within a single week.
Imagine another person with a 35-day cycle. Ovulation and conception may not even occur until “three weeks of pregnancy.” The earliest they may be able to detect a pregnancy is at “four to five weeks” pregnant. They won’t be expecting their period until “five weeks” and may not even remark it as a late period until “six weeks.” By the time they have taken a pregnancy test, they have only been carrying that embryo in their body for three weeks, and they have already missed the window to access abortion. Such variability in cycle may be even more common for adolescents, perimenopausal woman, transgender men receiving gender-affirming hormonal treatments, and people undergoing other health crises or significant stressors.
There are many reasons someone may want an abortion, and often detection of pregnancy happens after that six-week threshold. This Twitter thread provides heartbreaking examples .. https://twitter.com/gracieminabox/status/1432895863509196800 , including abuse victims, children as young as 11, trans men grappling with dysphoria and women with wanted pregnancies that were not viable. Ultimately, these decisions should be between pregnant people and their doctors, not politicians. In the Catholic tradition I was raised in, I was taught that the soul begins at conception—but also that dogs do not have souls. Both of those theological positions are now recognized as less certain by Pope Francis. American evangelical opposition to abortion is tightly entangled with white supremacist ideas .. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/anti-abortion-white-supremacy/ .. about outreproducing other racial and religious groups. Everyone should have the right to follow their own religious convictions—but legislators’ personal beliefs should not dictate medical decisions between a pregnant person and their health care provider.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
Justice Neil Gorsuch took 10 minutes to approve Dobbs abortion opinion – report
"Briefs Draw Battle Lines as Texas Abortion Law Nears Supreme Court "Texas Abortion Ban Goes Too Far For Even Some Republicans: ‘A Little Bit Extreme’ "The Strange, Sudden Silence of Conservative Abortion Foes "And so it begins, the counterattack. Abortion Providers Win Order to Stop Group Enforcing Texas Law""""
New York Times reports conservative supreme court justice had no changes to 98-page draft of opinion that removed right to abortion
Martin Pengelly in Washington @MartinPengelly Sat 16 Dec 2023 03.09 AEDT Last modified on Sat 16 Dec 2023 03.19 AEDT
Neil Gorsuch in 2021. The New York Times reports he and three other conservative justices had no changes to Samuel Alito’s draft opinion. Photograph: Erin Schaff/AP
The conservative supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch took just 10 minutes to approve without changes a 98-page draft of the opinion that would remove the federal right to abortion that had been guaranteed for nearly 50 years, the New York Times reported .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/us/supreme-court-dobbs-roe-abortion.html .
According to the paper, Samuel Alito, the author of the opinion in Dobbs v Jackson, the case that struck down Roe v Wade, from 1973, circulated his draft at 11.16am on 10 February 2022.
Citing two people who saw communications between the justices, the Times said .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/us/supreme-court-dobbs-roe-abortion.html : “After a justice shares an opinion inside the court, other members scrutinise it. Those in the majority can request revisions, sometimes as the price of their votes, sweating sentences or even words.
“But this time, despite the document’s length, Justice Neil M Gorsuch wrote back just 10 minutes later to say that he would sign on to the opinion and had no changes.”
Three other conservatives – Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh – signed on in the following days.
In a statement to the Guardian, Caroline Ciccone, president of the watchdog group Accountable.US, said: “These revelations offer yet another example of the current supreme court plowing through usual guardrails and tossing precedent aside to deliver an extreme decision ultimately impacting millions of Americans.”
The full opinion was passed down in June. Conservatives celebrated a great victory. Progressives protested. Since then, attacks on abortion rights including stringent bans in Republican-run states have fueled a series of Democratic election victories.
High-level Democratic sources have said the party will centre the issue in next year’s elections, as a rare subject on which they enjoy a distinct polling advantage.
The court remains at the centre of debate over abortion rights, this week saying it would hear a case about access to mifepristone, one of two pills typically used in the US for abortions by medication, a key part of maintaining access after Dobbs.
Ciccone said the Times report “begs serious questions as the high court takes up another critical abortion decision this term – one pushed through the courts by far-right interests and influencers like Leonard Leo [of the Federalist Society] who knew their agenda was too radical and unpopular to ever win at the ballot box”.
In its exhaustive reporting .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/us/supreme-court-dobbs-roe-abortion.html .. of how Dobbs came to be decided, and maneuvering among the justices, the Times said Amy Coney Barrett, a Catholic conservative appointed by Donald Trump to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal lion and protector of women’s rights, ultimately voted not to hear the case. But, the paper said, four men – Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Alito and Thomas – decided to move forward.
The conservative chief justice, John Roberts, and the liberal Stephen Breyer then sought to find middle ground. Roberts voted with the liberals to uphold Roe but the ultimate decision went the other way, 5-4 as Barrett ended up voting to knock down Roe.
“Guided by Justice Alito”, the Times said, the court “engineered a titanic shift in the law”.
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