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To the editor,
Some of the inevitable consequences of North Dakota’s ill-conceived and badly written
“trigger law” that will make abortion illegal on July 28:
- More women who miscarry or suffer other common complications of pregnancy will have their health and lives compromised by the need to travel out of state to receive medical services.
- College admissions will decline. Women will prefer to live and attend college in states that respect their autonomy, intelligence and prerogative to make their own medical/reproductive decisions.
- More women will live in poverty, carrying unwanted pregnancies to term without adequate medical, social or economic support.
- Men will continue to bear no responsibility for the consequences of their wanted or unwanted sexual encounters.
- More women will die as a result of desperate measures to end an unwanted pregnancy.
- Medical services in North Dakota, where there is already a shortage of doctors, nurses and other medical staff, will decline; doctors will be even less likely than they currently are to practice in a state where their medical decisions are second-guessed by legislators, and where their commitment to decent, medically accepted, and appropriate practice may result in accusations of criminal behavior and loss of license to practice.
- Medical costs will rise as the cost of legal liability insurance, especially for obstetricians and gynecologists also rises (and as doctors need to document why a miscarriage requires a medically-induced abortion to save a woman’s life).
- It will be more difficult to attract and retain new employees in all professions – who wants to make a life in a state whose legislators are so profoundly ignorant of medical practice and anti-women?
These consequences may be avoided if enough people let their legislators know that the “trigger law” supports neither women, their families nor the health of North Dakota.
