The anti-choice movement likes to frame abortion like it’s a just another form of birth control, and so if you can’t make up your mind before 20 weeks, well then you should get stuck with it. (Funny how they say they’re against unwanted pregnancies, but then are against abortion, contraceptives, and sex ed, and thus promote policies to increase the number of unwanted pregnancies.) So who waits 20 weeks or more? Simple, couples that just found out that their fetus has major birth defects. My wife and I recently had a child, and I was shocked to find out that we had to wait so long to find out whether or not our child had arms or a brain. Everything was fine, but it was very stressful until we got the diagnostic ultrasounds. Until about 20 weeks all OBs can check for are heartbeats and growth, which isn’t very informative at all.
What would have happened if we found our child was going to have major birth defects? We would have aborted it, without an ounce of guilt. Just the regret that we would have lost a second pregnancy.
