New York resident Tara Rule’s neurologist told her that a medication could cause birth defects to a hypothetical fetus.

In a similar example of post-Roe concerns around the mere possibility of pregnancy impacting people’s access to medication, several people who could become pregnant have reported being denied sometimes life-saving medications that are deemed “abortifacients” by doctors and pharmacists. Even before Roe was overturned, in 2021, a pregnant woman in Alabama was arrested and prosecuted for trying to pick up pain medication from her pharmacist to manage a chronic back condition, as police alleged she was endangering her pregnancy. Rule told Jezebel she’s heard from “people who say they were denied everything from acne medication to chemotherapy for the same reason.”

Rule’s case shows how the notion of fetal personhood—an ideology that regards embryos as separate people with rights at odds with the pregnant person’s—can be taken even further, said Dana Sussman, deputy executive director at Pregnancy Justice (which isn’t working on Rule’s case). “What we’re seeing is how this ideology can extend beyond pregnancy itself—the idea that if you can even become pregnant, then you can no longer make decisions about your own body or access medical care,” Sussman says.

  • @Juno@beehaw.org
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    61 year ago

    I just had a dr appointment for a spider bite

    “If you have sex, do you have sex with primarily male partners or female partners? Both? Or multiple partners?”

    “Ummmm…i have a spider bite… why are you asking me …”

    “OH ITS JUST A STANDARD QUESTION!!!”

    I was like “I don’t care for you asking me that. I find it unusual and odd and unrelated to my treatment. I HAVE A SPIDER BITE ON MY LEG.”

      • @Juno@beehaw.org
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        11 year ago

        I got my meds and u can’t take them while pregnant, but I don’t have my ovaries… so.

  • @apis@beehaw.org
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    51 year ago

    In my country, when abortion & contraception was still illegal, if a woman needed an emergency caesarean, they’d crack her pelvis open instead, as sometimes caesareans leave the patient unable to conceive in future.

    Delivering a child through broken pelvic bones, then raising a baby with such a major injury, and subsequent pregnancies & deliveries, was unimaginably horrific.

    • admiralteal
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      41 year ago

      The cruelty is the point.

      They aren’t pro-life. They’re anti-uterus. If they were pro life, they’d be pursuing all the policies necessary to promote parenthood instead of fomenting a culture and economy that make it all-the-more terrifying to face down an accidental pregnancy.

      • @apis@beehaw.org
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        21 year ago

        Mostly they want to force more people to be desperate, as desperation makes exploitation considerably easier.