If ‘abortion up to birth’ isn’t ‘a thing,’ why is it legal in 9 states plus DC?

Abortion advocates continue to claim that abortion doesn’t happen “moments before birth.” Yet state legislation and personal stories prove that it is completely legal to kill preborn babies with no restrictions at all in some states, and that women are able to obtain abortions extremely late in pregnancy for any reason. Just because not every story is told in the media, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) reported earlier this year on abortions late in pregnancy. In that report, KFF appeared to contradict itself by arguing that it is not legal to carry out abortions “moments before birth” while simultaneously claiming that such late abortions “are rare” (emphasis added).

“Discussions on this topic are often fraught with misinformation,” reads the report. “For example, intense public discussions have been sparked after several presidential candidates claimed there were abortions occurring ‘moments before birth’ or even ‘after birth.’ In reality, these scenarios do not occur, nor are they legal, in the United States.” In 2023, KFF Health News claimed, “Abortion ‘Until the Day of Birth’ is Almost Never a Thing.”

Almost never? So not “never“?

It makes no logical sense that these late abortions would “not occur” nor be “legal” while also being “rare” and “almost never a thing.” That’s because abortions late in pregnancy do occur and are legal. While there may only be a handful of abortion businesses that carry out these late abortions, and late abortions account for just one percent (1%) of all abortions nationwide, thousands of children are being killed late in pregnancy. As Live Action News previously reported, in 2021, as many as 11,210 abortions were carried out late in pregnancy based on data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.

That’s 11,210 children killed by abortion after 21 weeks (a time when children born prematurely have survived) in one year alone in the U.S. — more than double the number of children who tragically died from gun-related injuries in 2021 in the U.S.

Clearly, late abortion is legal, it happens, and it is taking thousands of lives annually.

READ: The media says no one supports ‘abortion after birth.’ Yet, language in some laws might allow it.

State laws

According to KFF, as of July 16, 2024, nine states and D.C. have “no gestational limits” on abortion. Those states are Alaska, Vermont, Oregon, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan, Maryland, and New Jersey.  Again, none of these areas have gestational limits on abortion, making it legal through all 40 weeks of pregnancy for any reason.

Here is an additional graphic from Guttmacher that shows these states:

The facilities

It is legal in those nine states and D.C. to have an abortion throughout pregnancy. Though few facilities and abortionists actively advertise abortions beyond 30 weeks of pregnancy, they are available — for any reason.

Maryland

CARE — Clinics for Abortion and Reproductive Excellence in Bethesda was run for years by the now-deceased abortionist LeRoy Carhart. It is currently listed at abortionfinder.org as offering abortion through 35 weeks and six days of pregnancy.

Partners in Abortion Care in College Park, Maryland, advertises abortion up to 34 weeks on abortionfinder.org.

Oregon

In Oregon, OHSU Center for Women’s Health in Portland is listed as committing abortion through 34 weeks at abortionfinder.org.

Colorado

Women’s Choice Health Care Clinic of Colorado in Aurora is listed by abortionfinder.org as committing abortions through 31 weeks and six days and Boulder Abortion Clinic in Boulder commits abortions through 32 weeks.

Washington, D.C.

The DuPont Clinic, which advertises itself as an “all trimester” abortion business, commits abortions in DC through 31 weeks, 6 days for any reason.

Washington Surgi-Clinic in Washington, D.C., states that it aborts babies up to “27 plus weeks” (emphasis added) leaving the truth of any abortion cutoff time frame up in the air. This facility has been the center of scandal for years, as it was the focus of a Live Action undercover investigation in 2013, which recorded the facility’s abortionist owner, Cesare Santangelo, saying that he is willing to leave abortion survivors to die. The business was in the media again after another undercover investigation by Live Action revealed that women are given Xanax to take before consenting to the procedure or meeting with Santangelo — and that women are told they may give birth to the baby alone in their hotel rooms during the first portion of the two to three-day procedure.

WARNING: Disturbing images.

On March 25, 2022, pro-life activists from Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) found the bodies of five babies aborted late in pregnancy in a medical waste bin outside of Washington Surgi-Clinic. Here are the images taken of their bodies:

Reasons for late abortion

To be clear, babies born as young as 21 weeks have a chance of surviving if they receive proper medical care. Yet these facilities abort babies beyond 30 weeks for any reason. These babies are close to birth and could be born at any time and survive.

Research shows that the reasons women have abortions in the third trimester are largely the same as the reasons given for first trimester abortions. A study published by Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health in 2022 found that “the circumstances that lead to someone needing a third-trimester abortion may have overlaps with the pathways to abortion at other gestations.”

Researcher Katrina Kimport wrote, “I find two pathways to needing a third‐trimester abortion: new information, wherein the respondent learned new information about the pregnancy — such as of an observed serious fetal health issue or that she was pregnant — that made the pregnancy not (or no longer) one she wanted to continue; and barriers to abortion, wherein the respondent was in the third trimester by the time she was able to surmount the obstacles to abortion she faced, including cost, finding a provider, and stigmatization. These two pathways were not wholly distinct and sometimes overlapped.”

She concluded, “There are thus many reasons — financial, logistical, and social — why third‐trimester abortion care is exceptional compared to first‐trimester abortion care. However, there is reason to believe that the circumstances that lead to someone needing a third‐trimester abortion are not exceptional.”

Cases of late abortion

The abortions included in this study were carried out between 24 weeks to 35 weeks LMP. One woman, Autumn, explained that she was already 26 weeks along when she learned she was pregnant. She had an abortion in the third trimester simply because she hadn’t known she was pregnant until then. Monica had an abortion in the third trimester after her now ex-boyfriend got a new job with a signing bonus that helped pay for the abortion.

In addition, in February 2023, news broke of a woman who underwent an abortion at 39 weeks in Montreal. A nurse/whistleblower told Montreal Against Abortion that someone had spoken to the mother about adoption, but she “[hadn’t] changed her mind” on having an abortion. “She is now in the operating room,” the nurse wrote. “They have already injected the baby.” The mother was allegedly homeless with a history of substance abuse, according to the Catholic Register.

While there are, of course, instances in which a baby is aborted during the third trimester because of a fetal diagnosis, there are average, everyday reasons as well. It’s vital to understand that even with a fetal diagnosis, aborting a child is always morally wrong and a means of eugenics.

When Erika Christensen and her husband traveled from New York to Colorado to have a late abortion at 32 weeks in 2016, it cost them $10,000. Their son, whom Christensen nicknamed “Spartacus for his fighting spirit,” had health concerns and he was deemed “incompatible with life.” The abortionist who carried out the procedure was the infamous Warren Hern, who told The Denver Post at the time that only 30% of the women who came to his facility for an abortion late in pregnancy had received such a diagnosis.

Christensen became a driving force behind the implementation of New York’s Reproductive Care Act, allowing even more babies to be discriminatorily killed because of a diagnosed health condition.

Editor’s Note, 9/11/24: Added graphic from Guttmacher.

The DOJ put a pro-life grandmother in jail for protesting the killing of preborn children. Please take 30-seconds to TELL CONGRESS: STOP THE DOJ FROM TARGETING PRO-LIFE AMERICANS.