Jessica Valenti - This is How They Kill Us: The rise of post-Roe c-sections

[Nevilledog]

https://jessica.substack.com/p/this-is-how-they-kill-us

Trigger warning for discussion of traumatic medical procedures

I remember the feeling of hands inside me. Pulling, tugging, moving things aside. My emergency c-section wasn’t painful, but that feeling of being invaded was somehow worse than physical hurt. For years, the thought of the surgery would send me into a PTSD panic, my knees literally buckling and vomit coming up the back of my throat. In my memory, my arms are tied down while I’m being cut—but I know that’s not true. It’s just my brain’s way of making the powerlessness of the moment seem tangible.

Because I was so early in my pregnancy, just 28 weeks along, doctors had to cut me both horizontally and vertically, making it life-threatening for me to have a vaginal birth in the future and increasing my risk for uterine rupture. I didn’t know it then, but I would never have another child.

So when I see anti-abortion groups blithely suggesting that women with life-threatening pregnancies should be forced into c-sections rather than easier, safer, and less traumatic abortions—it feels personal. Because I chose my medical nightmare; it was necessary to save both my life and my daughter’s. I can’t imagine the horror of going through such a thing unnecessarily, or at 16 weeks pregnant instead of 28. What if my tied-down arms weren’t a post-traumatic illusion, but a legal reality?

For nearly a year, I’ve been tracking this growing strategy: Some of the most powerful anti-abortion organizations in the country are using carefully-worded legislation and seemingly-credible clinical recommendations to codify medical atrocities—pushing doctors to force pregnant women into unnecessary labor and c-sections, even before fetal viability and sometimes even when a fetus has died.

*snip*