There has been a lot of discussion in the media and here at Daily Kos about the veracity of the story told by Ron DeSantis at the Republican Presidential debate last week. He referenced a woman referred to as “Penny,” who was supposedly a survivor of an abortion at 23 weeks in 1955. As related by DeSantis, she weighted less than two pounds at birth and was discarded “in a pan” until her grandmother discovered she was still alive and took her to another hospital.
One, given that even fathers weren’t allowed in the delivery room in 1955, it seems very unlikely the grandmother was allowed to be present at all to “find” the baby, let alone had the skill to keep it alive to transport it to another hospital.
Two, the current survival rate for babies born at 23 weeks is 56%. However, this is when every kind of 2023 cutting-edge neonatal technology is used to keep the baby alive. As many have already pointed out, neonatal technology was primitive, at best, in 1955. An incubator, perhaps (depending upon the hospital), but not much else. So, the odds that a baby of this age would survive in 1955 seems highly unlikely.
However, let’s set all that aside and assume there was some sort of “miracle,” and a 23-week-old baby survived in 1955.
What is the point of DeSantis telling this story? That because this woman allegedly lived being born at 23 weeks after an abortion, the practice should be banned at 15 weeks or at 6 weeks, like DeSantis did in the dead of night in Florida?
Let’s step back for a moment and think about what the pro-forced birth crowd says they want, which is a total ban on abortion. The underlying assumption of their proposed policy is that if abortion is made illegal, it will stop abortion.
The thing is, in 1955, abortion was illegal in the entire United States. And yet, this abortion took place regardless of that.
The point is that this story, even if true, doesn’t support the policy of banning abortion, because this abortion happened while it was illegal to perform abortions.
If anything, it proves the point that making abortion illegal doesn’t stop abortions.
So, this story demonstrates the opposite of what DeSantis and the pro-forced birth crowd want it to demonstrate.