Abortion Is Self Defense

Yes I’m serious. Pregnancy is dangerous. The best, least complicated pregnancy still ends with vaginal trauma or abdominal surgery. If an adult slit your stomach open it would be assault or even attempted murder. Legally (if not practically), we are allowed to use force to defend ourselves from a person trying to assault (or kill) us. So why is there not an accepted legal theory that abortion is self defense?

Abortion as self defense is arguably already an accepted justification in certain cases. What else would life of the mother exceptions to abortion bans mean? The problem is doctors are tasked with determining if the life of the pregnant person is really in danger, and often even if it is heartbeat bills delay action. A self defense argument would place the decision with the pregnant person and would also apply a reasonableness standard rather than a medical one.

Every state and the District of Columbia currently have laws that allow a person to commit violence or murder in defense of yourself or others so arguing abortion as self defense would not require a new law. A person is allowed to commit said violence if they have a reasonable fear of a threat of imminent harm. Some states have a “duty to retreat” requirement before committing violence (there’s obviously no where to retreat to if you’re pregnant) but Stand Your Ground states let you respond with violence without retreating (well at least they let white men respond with violence).

Let’s start with the reasonable fear (of bodily harm) part of the requirements to commit violence in self defense. Some would argue you should only be able to have an abortion in self defense if there is an extreme complication that might cause your death any minute. And I think that’s bullshit. Again there is literally no version of pregnancy that doesn’t involve serious bodily harm.

Common side effects include incontinence, throwing up multiple times a day, bleeding gums, anemia, exhaustion and urinary tract infections. You might say none of those symptoms are life threatening. But what if someone was poisoning you just enough that you were constantly throwing up but not enough that you were going to die and the only way to stop them was to shoot them (I don’t know maybe you’re so weak from throwing up that all you can do is raise a gun when you see them putting the poison in your food)? Most courts would say you were justified in that shooting (or at least this would be true if most courts weren’t outrageously sexist and didn’t jail women for defending themselves).

Full-term pregnancies end after hours of searing pain – with major abdominal surgery or a pretty significant assault on your vagina. A labor isn’t even considered “prolonged” until it hits 20 hours. So 12 hours of pain without being able to eat or drink is considered the “uncomplicated” version. The average blood loss during labor (not considered excessive) is 500-1,000 ml. During labor, the pregnant person can break their tailbone, need an episiotomy or experience vaginal tearing. Everyone typically needs six weeks to recover.

Eight percent of pregnancies are so complicated they result in serious harm, or death, to the pregnant person or the fetus. Preeclampsia – a hypertension disorder that can result in maternal and infant mortality – occurs in up to 8 percent of pregnancies. Gestational diabetes similarly occurs in up to 8 percent of pregnancies and can lead to high blood pressure, a difficult birth and Type 2 diabetes for both the mother and child later in life. Two percent of pregnancies are ectopic. The fertilized egg didn’t implant in the uterus. That’s deadly if not treated with an abortion. About 26 percent miscarry. Half of those miscarriages need a D&C (an abortion procedure) to treat them. Without proper medical care, miscarriages can lead to bleeding, infection and sepsis.

My own mother had “uncomplicated” pregnancies with me and my brother. But she had serious complications during labor. I had the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck (malposition). My brother got stuck after his head was delivered (shoulder dystocia).

So do we all agree its reasonable to assume pregnancy will cause bodily harm right? Which probably means its reasonable to use force (aka an abortion) to prevent that bodily harm since there’s literally no other way to end a pregnancy. The other part of the standard is that the harm be imminent. For some of the above mentioned harms they wont happen until the end of the pregnancy or they only might happen at some point during it. But the reason for the requirement that the harm be imminent is because otherwise you have other options than violence. In the case of pregnancy there are no other options.

I made this argument for the first time on twitter and in an Alternet article in 2022 (I recycled the statistics for this piece) and I’m even more convinced of its need now. In September 2024 Pregnancy Justice released a report detailing that over 200 pregnant people faced criminal charges related to pregnancy. The majority were charged with child abuse or neglect usually for taking drugs while pregnant (I’ll be writing more about that soon) but there were at least five cases for abortion and 22 for “fetal demise” (a miscarriage or stillbirth) that was blamed on the mother’s behavior. I haven’t been able to find an updated number but its surely significantly higher now.

In her newsletter

Jessica Valenti

discussed a mother and teen being charged after a self managed abortion. The daughter was charged with concealing the death of a child and abuse of a corpse while the mother was charged with endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, and criminal conspiracy to conceal the death of a child (because she got her daughter the abortion pills I guess). Abortion is legal until 24 weeks in Pennsylvania and the teen was only 20 weeks pregnant but because they buried the fetus so the state used that as an excuse which is unfortunately all too common. As Valenti points out, the charge for concealing the death of a child goes much further and actually validates fetal personhood for a 20 week old fetus. While a self defense argument might not work in defense of mishandling a corpse, the case highlights how important it is to have creative defenses in the face of rampant criminalization even in states where abortion is legal.

One of the reasons I advocate for an abortion as self defense argument so much is because it could work even if personhood becomes accepted. It’s a defense that could work even if a pregnant person is charged with murder for having an abortion because the fetus is causing harm and there is no other way to end that harm.

While I think its important we embrace the argument that abortion is self defense-I’ll also add that if it needs to be used in a courtroom its a last resort and might not work. Women already have trouble claiming self defense when they kill their abusers and there’s no guarantee a judge would allow this argument in or that a jury would buy it. But its also possible that juries might be looking for an excuse to not send someone to jail for having an abortion. Additionally we can make this argument part of the discourse and slowly start to change people’s minds about it even if its never used in court.

The Adriana Smith case is a tragic example of the dangers of pregnancy. She was a healthy 31 year old pregnant woman with a headache. She was worried and went to the hospital but was turned away. When she was rushed back the next day a CT scan revealed blood clots, which pregnant women are at a significantly higher risk for. Unfortunately she was brain dead, but she was kept alive for weeks as an incubator for her son because Georgia has a heartbeat law. He was born via c-section this week very premature at 1 lb 13 ounces because her body was starting to decay. Adriana Smith wanted this baby and likely never planned to have an abortion. But the fact that the risk of a deadly blood clot is higher when you’re pregnant (and hospitals are more likely to misdiagnose or dismiss women especially if they’re Black) shows that we must have tools at our disposal to protect ourselves. Pregnancy is dangerous and abortion is self defense.