A pro-abortion group in Arizona is running a $15 million advertising campaign in support of a pro-abortion measure set for the November ballot. The ad exploits the tragic story of child loss.
Arizona for Abortion Access, the group behind the proposed ballot initiative, is a coalition of several pro-abortion groups including the ACLU of Arizona and Planned Parenthood Arizona. Proposition 139 would create a “fundamental right” to abortion through 24 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions to “protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual.”
The advertising campaign includes ads for radio, mail, broadcast, and streaming and will run through the state until Election Day in line with the start of early voting on October 9. The ad campaign features a couple, Ashley Ortiz and Vance Rogers, who said they were denied an abortion under the state’s current law, which allows abortion through 15 weeks with an exception to save the mother’s life or prevent impairment of a major bodily function.
Ortiz and Rogers, who were expecting a child in 2023, learned at the 20-week ultrasound that she was in preterm labor. In an op-ed this week for AZ Central, Ortiz wrote, “The scan clearly showed that my cervix had opened, and my baby’s foot was protruding. At 20 weeks, my baby was not yet viable and would not survive.”
She was admitted to the hospital, and explained that the “doctors told me, us they weren’t allowed to help me because of Arizona’s abortion ban.” This implies that induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of a preborn child — is the only way to “help” parents dealing with a pregnancy complication. This is untrue. There is no complication in pregnancy that requires the preborn baby to be actively and intentionally killed to save the mother.
Ortiz told NBC News, “The options that we were given were to wait and be hospitalized and wait for him to be completely born, and it would be a stillbirth, or to wait until I became so sick that they had to help me.”
According to Arizona Family, Ortiz said though the baby had no chance of surviving, doctors said it was illegal to give her “medicine to induce delivery” because of the state’s law protecting children from abortion after 15 weeks.
However, Arizona defines abortion as “the use of any means to terminate the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman with knowledge that the termination by those means will cause, with reasonable likelihood, the death of the unborn child.” It also has a medical exception which states, “Except in a medical emergency, a physician may not perform, induce or attempt to perform or induce an abortion …”
After two days of waiting, their baby’s heart stopped and Ortiz was given “medicine,” according to Arizona Family. She then delivered him but suffered complications and required emergency surgery. Ortiz blamed the state’s law, calling it a “harsh and heartless abortion ban… that made the best course of treatment illegal.”
But this is untrue. The standard of care in this situation, known as incompetent cervix or cervical insufficiency, is to stitch the cervix closed and attempt to prevent labor. If this is not possible, doctors can monitor the woman and child and deliver the child when they deem necessary.
Babies born as young as 21 weeks have survived and there is no need to intentionally kill the child prior to delivery. Had the child needed to be delivered to protect Ortiz’s health or life, the law would have allowed it.
The story, while undeniably tragic, is not an example of why intentional killing by way of induced abortion should be legal. “I think storytelling is obviously our most compelling way to reach voters,” said Chris Love, a spokeswoman for Arizona for Abortion Access.
Other compelling stories exist that prove induced abortion is not necessary in cases of incompetent cervix.
Della Shiel suffered incompetent cervix, and when she arrived at the hospital it was too late to do the cervical stitch. Her son Henry was delivered at just 24 weeks and survived.
Screenshot: Daily Motion
Youanna Torres also suffered incompetent cervix while pregnant with her son Savier, who was born at 19 weeks and lived for two hours outside of the womb. Savier did not need to be intentionally killed, and was treated with the human dignity he deserved.
And Crystal Odom shared her story of cervical insufficiency. She was 17 weeks pregnant with her daughter Everleigh and doctors performed a cervical cerclage, which involves putting a stitch around the cervix to keep it closed. Everleigh’s birth was delayed until 23 weeks when she was old enough to survive.
In none of these instances did the child need to be intentionally and directly killed by induced abortion.
Though an induced abortion is not the standard of care for incompetent cervix, Arizona for Abortion Access is using this tragic story of child loss and potential medical malpractice to push for legalized abortion for any reason through 24 weeks.
