Pregnancy Has Risks. Without Roe, More People Will Face Them
SOMEHOW IN THE debate about abortion and the onset of human life, the physical reality of pregnancy has been disregarded. It isn’t just an inconvenient interlude. Pregnancy places a strain on the body, sometimes in life-altering or even perilous ways. It burdens the heart—in a literal sense. If the US Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, allowing states to ban or strictly limit abortion, the number of pregnancies carried to term will rise, and so will the number of people facing the health risks of pregnancy.
The abortion conversation centers on fetal development, from the first pulsing cardiac cells to viability. Here’s what happens to the woman: By four weeks of pregnancy, her blood volume begins to rise, expanding 50 percent by the time of delivery. The heart beats faster to pump that extra blood, much of it flowing to the uterus, placenta, and kidneys. The kidneys expand in size, volume, and filtration.
Blood clotting becomes stronger, peaking before delivery, the body’s way of protecting against hemorrhage, which has always been a leading cause of childbirth-related death. But as a result of the extra clotting, compared to non-pregnant women of reproductive age, pregnant women have five times the risk of deep vein thrombosis, a painful and potentially life-threatening clot, usually in the legs. They are three times more likely to have a stroke; the risk is even higher for Black women.
In 2020, 861 women died from pregnancy-related causes, most commonly from cardiovascular events. About 60,000 women had serious childbirth-related complications, a figure that doesn’t count severe conditions that arise prenatally or in the postpartum months. About 7 percent of women develop gestational diabetes and about the same portion have gestational hypertension, which can lead to immediate as well as lifelong health problems.
https://www.wired.com/story/pregnancy-has-risks-without-roe-more-people-will-face-them/
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