Ectopic Pregnancies Are Medical Emergencies — Not Political Footballs

In this op-ed, a North Carolina congressional candidate talks about her experience with ectopic pregnancy.
Nida Allam

Missouri lawmakers recently introduced a bill that — among other dangerous restrictions — would outlaw abortions performed on patients suffering from ectopic pregnancies. The number one cause of death in the first trimester and the cause of 10-15% of overall maternal deaths, ectopic pregnancies are life-threatening medical emergencies and cannot be viably carried to term. The stakes are quite literally life or death.

I would know. I had an abortion due to an ectopic pregnancy in 2021. And it saved my life.

My husband, Towqir, and I have dreamt of starting a family together for years. But struggles with infertility and miscarriage have made our family-planning journey more complicated than most. For over a year, I have been undergoing fertility treatments in the hopes of one day carrying a pregnancy to term and bringing a baby into this world. I want to raise children in the same close-knit community that raised me and my two sisters.

That’s why it was particularly heartbreaking when our doctors told us I was suffering from an ectopic pregnancy. A fertilized egg had implanted outside of my uterus and the fetus had no chance of surviving. And with a high risk of rupture, ectopic pregnancies can lead to severe hemorrhages, including internal bleeding. If I waited too long, it could have killed me.

With my husband and doctors at my side, I made the difficult, necessary decision to abort the pregnancy. It was my only hope to continue living and one day, hopefully, to successfully keep a pregnancy. I felt tragedy and fear at every corner, worrying that I would never be able to get pregnant again, grieving the miscarriage we had already suffered, paying thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for proper treatment.

And yet, despite the pain and horrific trauma of this experience, I am one of the fortunate. I have access to doctors, health insurance, and a supportive partner who respects my right to control my own body — and determine my own destiny. Thousands of Americans every year suffer from ectopic pregnancies and many of them are not so lucky.

The Missouri General Assembly is not the first legislature to attack these Americans and their loved ones. In fact, in 2019, Ohio lawmakers introduced a bill that would have forced doctors to “reimplant” ectopic pregnancies — an impossible, fabricated procedure — or face criminal charges. And now, as Missouri renews these attacks, states across the country are poised to follow suit.

Texas, Idaho, and Mississippi have already passed harmful laws not only banning almost all abortions but criminalizing those who perform them — and in the case of Texas, even others who aid in this vital procedure. In Idaho, “relatives” of the embryo are now allowed to sue abortion providers. We are on the brink of an oppressive shift in reproductive rights, powered by vigilantism and shame.

These bills presume to know what’s best for birth-giving people on a systemic level. They condescend to us as if we do not live in the sacred confines of our own bodies, as if we are not also human beings, equally worthy of autonomy and choice. Moving forward with this legislation means allowing us to die painful, preventable deaths rather than to make decisions about our own bodies.

I am a Muslim woman — the first Muslim woman elected to public office in the state of North Carolina. I know firsthand that reproductive health and reproductive justice come with stigmas and nuance, particularly in some religious communities. But the GOP has no business forcing women to carry dangerous pregnancies to signal their own virtue. There is no virtue in what they are doing.

That’s why I’m running for Congress. Americans deserve a representative who knows what it’s like to choose between two heartbreaks, and more importantly, who will fight for their right to choose with dignity. It’s time that we break the stigma and engage in open, honest conversations around reproductive health. It’s time that we increase access to abortion and family-planning services, so that wealth and circumstance do not determine our fundamental right to control our bodies.

And, most urgently, it’s time that we codify Roe v. Wade at the federal level so that GOP lawmakers like those in Missouri are no longer emboldened to police health care providers. We need legal protection for this basic right — and if the courts won’t uphold it, then Congress must. If we do not act, an ectopic pregnancy could become a death sentence in states across the country and thousands of people like me could pay the ultimate price.

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