Texas Monthly

Amy O’Donnell, a spokesperson for Texas Alliance for Life, another advocacy group that opposes abortion rights, pointed to the state’s existing health and safety code, in which ectopic pregnancies, pregnancies in which the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, and miscarriages are not considered abortions. In other scenarios in which a pregnant patient’s life or health are at risk, O’Donnell and other like-minded activists say doctors can perform what they call a “separation” of an unborn child from its mother—terminology echoed in a fact sheet produced by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a right-to-life organization based in Washington, D.C., that advocates for the idea that human life begins at conception. Like other anti-abortion advocates, O’Donnell argues that Roe’s reversal does not cause undue risk to pregnant women because the health conditions that would require abortion as a means of saving their lives or their long-term health are “very rare in modern science.” When those conditions do arise, she said, medical exceptions in the law adequately address those cases. “When a pregnant mother faces a life-threatening situation, an induced abortion that aims to kill the child is not the answer,” she said. “There are many ways to deal with this situation that do not seek to take the life of the child.”