The uselessness of exceptions to draconian abortion bans
By 
They don’t work, and they’re not intended to:
If you’re a regular AED reader, you know I write a lot about how abortion exceptions aren’t real. They’re not usable—which is the point. Republicans get to keep their laws as extreme as possible while pretending as if they’re offering exemptions. It’s a crock of shit. And I’m sorry to say that the story I’m sharing today proves just how fake exceptions really are.
A Louisiana woman has come forward about being denied an abortion despite her fetus having fatal abnormality that is specifically listed in the state’s abortion ban exception for “medically futile” pregnancies. Brittany Vidrine was 16 weeks pregnant when she found out her fetus was developing without a skull—it had anencephaly, a neural tube defect that is almost always fatal.
And though Louisiana’s abortion ban has a supposed ‘exception’ for pregnancies like Vidrine’s, it also threatens doctors jail time and loss of their license—and so she couldn’t find a single physician in her home state willing to give her care.
Michelle Erenberg of the abortion rights organization Lift Louisiana told The Acadiana Advocate, “Physicians are terrified that their decision or provision of care to their patients could be second-guessed and they could be criminally prosecuted.”
That meant that this mother-of-two, just given perhaps the worst news of her life, had to drive to Colorado for an abortion. “To have to make this choice and then have to go through everything on top of it was just hurt added to the pile of already hurt we were experiencing,” she said.
If that wasn’t horrific enough, please check out what the executive director of Louisiana Right to Life, Benjamin Clapper, said about exceptions for fatal abnormalities: “We recognize the deep suffering families experience after receiving grave diagnoses. With this being said, all persons, including those with disabilities or terminal illnesses, have the right to life.”
Abortion ban ‘exceptions’ were never meant to be used. The anti-abortion organizations who hold so much power in these states make sure of that. These are their laws, and they’re working exactly the way they want them to.
It’s easy to say that doctors should just be willing to run the risk of being arrested and charged by bad faith anti-abortion prosecutors as the cost of doing business, but it’s a lot harder to do if you’re the one facing jail time. Terrorizing doctors is a central objective of the anti-abortion movement because it allows them to nullify any exceptions they feel the need to make as a political concession.