The choice: reproductive rights in the 2024 election

Yale Daily News

During the months leading up to Election Day, reproductive health has been a major concern for voters. According to Election News questionnaireaccess to abortion is one of the top five important issues for 60 percent of Yale students.

Yale School of Medicine physicians and students involved in abortion-related access in the upcoming election shared their concerns about how the election could impact reproductive freedom.

Kexin Meng ’23 MED ’27, originally from Arkansas, where abortion is banned unless the patient’s life is threatened, said geography played an important factor in the medical schools she applied to. In states where abortion is highly restricted, medical schools may have different curricula around reproductive health.

“I think if Trump wins, it’s definitely a much scarier situation. This is not just about abortion care, but also about birth control, birth control and LGBTQ+ care. It is also about medical education for the future, in terms of what schools can and cannot teach,” she said. “You’re seeing students in many red states not even able to get that kind of training in medical school, and they’re going to have to look elsewhere.”

Student groups navigate the elections

At Yale College, several student groups engaged in reproductive and abortion-related activism are considering how the changing political climate might affect their work.

Leaders of several student groups told News that their work on reproductive rights or abortion would not change significantly after the election.

The Yale Women’s Center offers reproductive resources including Plan B, pregnancy tests and condoms. The student-run center, which was founded in 1970, has engaged in abortion rights activism throughout its history, although the university recently directed the board to maintain neutrality in its programming and actions.

“The Yale Women’s Center works to break down societal gender structures and roles and ensure women’s right to independence through reproductive freedom, self-determined voices, freedom of sexuality, and a full range of health and social services,” wrote the board of the Women’s Center told the News in a joint statement. “The YWC will continue to advocate for reproductive freedom regardless of the outcome of the election.”

Emma Ventresca ’26, president of Choose Life at Yale, an anti-abortion organization at Yale, hopes that this election has spread awareness of “the right to life as a serious concern,” but sees efforts “on the ground” as essential to the pro-life movement, regardless of the president’s views.

Ventresca also expressed her hope that “every state recognizes the horrors of abortion” and “promotes alternatives… in cases where mothers believe they do not have the resources they need to become parents.”

Maddy Corson ’26, the president of YaleBleeds, an organization dedicated to advancing menstrual equity, said that while her organization is focused on promoting access to menstrual products, she believes the upcoming election — and the differing messages from the candidates on women’s health care – this will change. influence the way her organization engages in its work and activism.

“In the Harris world, I think we will find it much easier to advocate for historic products,” she said.

Corson also noted that the issue of menstrual equality has been brought up in this election, as some Republicans and supporters of former President Trump have nicknamed Governor Tim Walz “Tampon Tim‘ for his work as governor of Minnesota to require public schools to provide menstrual products to students in fourth through twelfth grades.

Corson noted that Walz’s work in Minnesota public schools aligns with YaleBleeds’ mission of making sanitary pads and tampons accessible across campus.

Doctors on the consequences of abortion bans

Harvey Kliman is director of the Reproductive and Placental Research Unit at the Yale School of Medicine. He found that 98 percent of pregnancy complications that lead to loss are due to genetic abnormalities.

“Why should her life be endangered because she happens to be carrying a genetically abnormal pregnancy?” Kliman said. He fears what would happen to women if the country were under a government that inherently blames women for their pregnancy losses.

This is evident from a study led by KlimanEvery year, one million pregnancies end in miscarriage, a loss that occurs before the 20th week of pregnancy. However, there are more than 20,000 pregnancies that end in stillbirth, meaning the loss occurred after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Kliman explained that, due to evolutionary developments, the placenta is “so tenacious” that it can survive at the expense of the mother. Strict policies can make it difficult for women to find appropriate care.

“That’s why women are dying because of all these ridiculous laws that basically say you have to be almost dead,” Kliman said.

In Texas for example, under The law for the protection of human lifeabortions are only permitted if a mother is “at risk of death” or “is at serious risk of substantial impairment of an important bodily function.”

Kliman questioned this “near-death” policy, saying that any stillbirths can be predicted early and complications can be minimized if an abortion is performed before the woman is near death.

Kliman does pro bono work to help mothers who have ended up in prison due to pregnancy loss. This is not unusual in red states. He shared a recent case in which a woman was jailed for delivering a stillborn child because the medical examiner found methamphetamine in the fetus.

“Basically the medical examiner said, ‘Well, I don’t know what caused it, but it’s possible it’s methamphetamine.’ There is actually no reality in that. Methamphetamine cannot terminate a pregnancy,” Kliman said, adding that he has never seen such a case “in a blue state.” Kliman expects that if abortion policy were to shift nationally to a “near-death” restriction, more women would die.

David Seifer, professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the Yale School of Medicine, explained that if individual states have their own state laws, families may need to consider policies when deciding whether to cryopreserve eggs or embryos.

Seifer also explained how policy differences can impact where a medical student might choose to conduct their obstetrician-gynecologist or OB-GYN residency program.

“If you’re a gynecologist, or a medical student, and you think about being a gynecologist, you probably want to be equipped to take care of the health of all women,” Seifer said. “You want to do a residency in a blue state where you can learn what it takes to save a woman’s life if she miscarries.”

This is a problem, for example, with Texaswhere OBG-YN residents cannot receive full resident training in some areas. Their medical school will likely lack training in a dilation and curettage procedure for miscarriage, a “life-saving procedure,” Seifer said.

Meng added that former President Donald Trump’s victory could worsen these disparities in medical education in many areas.

Meng and Iris Becene MED ’27 are the student leaders of Yale’s Medical Students for Choice chapter. According to its website, the organization is “committed to integrating equitable and accessible reproductive justice education into the curriculum and working to advance the next generation of reproductive health care providers.”

Becene has since explained that the Dobbs decisiontheir educational curriculum emphasizes Connecticut as an “abortion safe haven,” with people from other states coming here for abortions.

She noted that while Connecticut has robust abortion protections, political unrest at the national level, especially at the current Supreme Court, concerns her. She fears that the current court will restrict abortion and the availability of contraceptive and fertility treatments

“People are dying, we’re seeing that in places where abortion has been restricted, lives are being lost and it’s one of the scariest things to think that this could potentially spread to more people,” Meng added.

In Connecticut, polls are open until 8 p.m. today.