Jennifer R. Povey
2 min readJul 7, 2022

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From this response, I think there's something you are unaware of, and that is the "Chilling effect."

It's usually discussed in reference to censorship.

If it is unclear whether something is in fact legal, and you are going to be investigated or moderated, the chilling effect means that you don't do the thing...whether it's cursing on social media or acting to save somebody's life.

Doctors are afraid of going to jail because these laws are written in a way which is unclear and a non-medically trained person will decide whether or not they go to jail.

Here's another example:

Women with something called pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure specifically in the lungs) are advised not to get pregnant. The maternal mortality rate is between 30% and 56%. However, these women don't die during pregnancy. They die during childbirth or right after. There's no medical emergency until labor. Meaning that if the abortion law states "medical emergency" doctors won't be able to abort even if their assessment is "Very high risk of dying in childbirth." Nope, gotta go through the pregnancy and try to save them during labor, even if they also have other conditions that skyrockets the rate even higher. And even if the chance of saving the fetus is extremely slim.

"Sorry, you can't have the simple procedure, you have to have multiple heart attacks and potentially die in agony"

And I smell a desire to have the Supreme Court legislate from the bench when you agree while saying the shouldn't when you don't.

But again.

Abortion to save the mother is literally controversial. There are literally people who think it should not be allowed in this country.

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Jennifer R. Povey
Jennifer R. Povey

Written by Jennifer R. Povey

I write about fantasy, science fiction and horror, LGBT issues, travel, and social issues.

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