Describing miscarriage as “intrauterine death” threatens abortion rights
In 2023, Jessalyn Bohn wrote “When Words Fail: ‘Miscarriage,’ Referential Ambiguity, and Psychological Harm.” She called for more precision and sensitivity when describing pregnancy loss.
About a year later, Belinda Alievska wrote some reflections of Bohn’s work: The Implications of Revising The Terminology of Pregnancy Loss. Specifically Alievska worried that Bohn’s proposed phrase “intrauterine death” has “potential to influence debates surrounding pregnancy amidst a highly charged political atmosphere.” In particular, Alievska was concerned the phrase could “fundamentally alter the public and political discourse surrounding abortion.” She elaborated:
Adopting terminology [for miscarriage] that emphasizes the loss of life, such as “intrauterine death,” could shift the perception of abortion from a medical procedure to an act with more profound moral and emotional weight.
Belinda Alievska
Further, Alievska observed:
The term “death” is often reserved for the loss of life. We use the term death to speak of humans, pets and other animals, and other living entities (such as plants).
Belinda Alievska
It’s difficult to imagine an argument that explains why “death” could fairly describe the end of a plant’s life but not an embryo’s.
Alievska noted, correctly, that Secular Pro-Life has referenced Bohn’s work before, although she may not be sure what precisely our point was when we did so. This is the passage from Bohn that I quoted:
“While the experience of losing one’s child or delivering prematurely is traumatic on its own, those bereaved by intrauterine death suffer additional, mitigatable, psychological harm. Specifically, they often struggle with disenfranchised grief–‘grief that persons experience when they incur a loss that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, publicly mourned, or socially supported’–misplaced guilt, and shock at preterm delivery’s physical reality.”
Jessalyn Bohn
I highlighted this quote to emphasize the phenomenon of loss parents feeling unsupported and silenced as we navigate our anguish. This is an extension of my prior discussion about how some more strident defenses of abortion involve gaslighting loss parents and minimizing our grief.
[Read more – Our cultural gaslighting of women who miscarry before 20 weeks]
And then Alievska wrote an article hesitating over whether society should clearly and sensitively acknowledge the losses that parents experience, because doing so risks undermining abortion rights.
She’s making my point for me.
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