Abortion in the Time of COVID19

The dramatic and life-altering impact of the coronavirus pandemic has only begun to be felt. The responsible among us are social distancing. The sick among us are self-quarantining. The terribly ill among us are fighting for their lives. What once seemed important might, all of a sudden, seem small or even irrelevant. Priorities shift in a crisis like this.

Unless, of course, you’re pregnant and don’t want to be. Your priority, whether in a pandemic or not, is the same: find a way to get an abortion.

Imagine that happens to you. You decide to have an abortion. You’ve never been faced with this before, and now you have to figure out a way to get one. You turn to the internet. You google “abortion clinic” and the name of your town or city. You may find dozens of results, but many are “crisis pregnancy centers,” fake health care centers designed to dissuade you from having an abortion. Perhaps you find an actual abortion clinic in your area (which you can easily do by visiting the National Abortion Federation). You call and make an appointment. Maybe you’re in one of the many states that imposes a mandatory waiting period, meaning you have to make two appointments to actually get an abortion. Maybe you have to figure out child care. Maybe you have to figure out how you’re going to get there––borrow a car or take a long-distance bus. You might be low on gas money. You will most likely have to take off work, which might be nearly impossible for you.

Now, you have to figure out how to do all of that in the middle of a pandemic. But getting an abortion is still a priority for you. So you find a way.

. . .

I’ve written about abortion and reproductive rights for seven years now, and I’ve been a volunteer clinic escort for six years. Ensuring that people have access to safe abortion is a priority for me, and helping to inform the public about the ways in which this right is being eroded before our very eyes is also a priority. 

But when I pitched possible pieces on how the coronavirus would affect abortion access, I was met with a wall of opposition. Some editors simply couldn’t take more on. But one in particular––a cisgender man, no less––saw it very differently. “That’s just not a priority right now,” he responded to me, rejecting my pitch. “We’re focused on how the pandemic will affect everyday people.” 

As if everyday people don’t have abortions.

This editor -- someone who likely knows and loves someone who has had an abortion, perhaps even a partner -- still couldn’t see why abortion would be important to anyone in the middle of a pandemic of such frightening proportions. He doesn't consider abortion to be a priority. But safe abortion is always a priority if you need one. Crises like the coronavirus pandemic exacerbate the disparities that have already been in place. They make the suffering of the marginalized more acute. And they reveal whose rights and whose lives are prioritized and whose are cast as disposable.

This editor isn’t anti-choice, and I’m sure he didn’t intend to belittle abortion care. He just didn’t see how it could be a story worth telling in this moment, and that’s because to him abortion isn’t a vital, life-or-death right. Abortion isn’t an imperative in his life or those around him (that he knows of, anyway), so it’s a disposable story. 

But the people who need abortions still need abortions. Now they will have to contend not only with the myriad restrictions in their own state, like mandatory waiting periods, mandatory ultrasounds, and lack of Medicaid funding for abortion, but they will also have to risk contracting COVID-19 and exposing those they love in order to do it. 

. . .

Abortion isn’t just a priority for those of us who want to defend it either. Anti-choice lawmakers aren’t sitting on the sidelines, focused on improving public health. No, instead they’re using this pandemic as an opportunity to further restrict and ban abortion in their respective states. In Tennessee anti-choice Republicans advanced a bill that would require abortion providers to erroneously tell patients that medication abortion can be “reversed,” something that isn’t scientifically possible. The Kentucky House of Representatives passed two anti-abortion bills, one of which would enshrine in the Kentucky state constitution that no one has the constitutional right to an abortion. Indiana’s Republican Governor Eric Holcomb signed into law an abominable bill that would require patients who have a medication abortion at home to be told that they can have their fetal remains buried or cremated. 

Now Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is using the coronavirus pandemic to essentially ban abortion in the state. He has ordered all abortion clinics in Ohio to close their doors and stop performing “elective” abortions immediately. If clinics comply, Ohio will be an abortion-free state. If they don’t, they will likely face stiff penalties and legal action.

Anti-choice lawmakers aren’t being shy about the fact that banning abortion is still a priority under this epidemic. So why aren’t the stories and the lives of people who need an abortion prioritized, too? This epidemic has upended most areas of Americans’ lives, and it’s likely going to get much worse. That applies to our bank accounts and our jobs, our friendships and our mental health. It also applies to our reproductive health. It isn’t just unfair to ignore that; it’s a critical mistake.

Over the past decade, we have seen the utter erosion of the right to safe, legal abortion across the country. More than 400 abortion restrictions have been signed into law since 2011. A third of all abortion clinics have been forced to close. Women of color have been criminalized for self-managing their abortions, or even having a miscarriage. With a 5-4 conservative split on the Supreme Court, we are potentially on the precipice of the end of Roe v. Wade. The coronavirus pandemic didn’t create this crisis for abortion rights, but it will certainly exacerbate it. We owe it to every person seeking an abortion to continue to support that effort, and that includes telling the truth about how this pandemic is going to make what was already difficult nearly impossible for many. 

People will always need abortions, and they should always be able to get them. Coronavirus is yet another road block for those who need this care. It’s up to us to ensure that it isn’t also a dead end.

Safe abortion isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity. It always has been––through economic crises, natural disasters, and wars––the need for access to safe abortion remains. 

Lauren Rankin is a freelance writer covering reproductive rights and feminist politics. Her work has been featured at the Washington Post, The Cut, Fast Company, Allure, Cosmopolitan, InStyle, SELF, Teen Vogue, and many more. She’s also served as a volunteer clinic escort at an independent abortion clinic in northern New Jersey since 2014. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.