A trio of academic researchers are concerned that most Americans don't know how pregnancies are dated. It turns out I didn't know either. I've always assumed that pregnancy is dated from conception and lasts about 39 weeks.
Nope. Pregnancies are dated from the start of the mother's last menstrual period, which is usually about two weeks before conception. The average gestation lasts a hair over 38 weeks, for a total of 40.
Does this matter? The authors suggest it does because it means "6-week" abortion bans are actually 4-week bans dated from conception—when it's unlikely a woman even knows she's pregnant. So it's an important distinction.
I suppose. My own take is that the whole point of a 6-week ban is to seem a little less extreme than the zealots while still effectively prohibiting all abortions. So it's not as if the dating distinction is just an innocent mistake that needs explanation. It's all part of the plan.
And of course, it's only two weeks from the date of the missed period (assuming regular cycles). So if you aren't expecting or hoping to be pregnant or thinking you might be, you have two weeks max to have an abortion (if that's what you decide to do).
Pregnancy tests can often pick up pregnancies at around ten days after conception, so in the hypothetical case that you were testing before your missed period, you’d have about 2.5 weeks.
Yes, but why would a woman be testing before a missed period?
Trying to get pregnant, especially if artificial means have been used.
Raped and worried about the timing. Or just generally concerned about an “accident”
Sure. Sitting around, nothing to do, so why not test?!
So, you're advocating that all women who have sex should test themselves for pregnancy every couple of weeks?
Maybe Ogemaniac is advocating that the government test women for pregnancy every couple of weeks.
Exactly.
Because she had unprotected sex.
In that situation, I'm thinking most women would wait -- somewhat nervously, no doubt -- until they missed their period. There was a time, anyway, when there was nothing to be gained by testing early instead of waiting a couple weeks to find out (bearing in mind too that if you test early and get a negative result, you'll still want to test again if your period is late). This calculus may change in states with increasingly harsh bans.
Thought question: How many people (men and women alike) test for STD's after having sex in which a condom wasn't used?
My point was this: Unless you're testing -- which would generally mean you were trying to get pregnant or afraid you might be pregnant -- you wouldn't even think about testing until sometime after you missed your period. In all my years, I never tested for pregnancy unless it was one or the other.
That may change now for women in states with short bans.
It has to change now for those unfortunate women. Test test test and preemptively pop M&M if there is any doubt.
Just coming in to say this. My wife and I were trying to get pregnant, and she was hypervigilant, testing early, using brands of tests that supposedly picked up a result earlier, and I think we still didn't get it confirmed by her OB/GYN until either the 4 or 5 week point. (I think it was 5, but I'm not positive.)
And that's expecting it. As you say, if you weren't planning to get pregnant, if you used protection that failed, if you have irregular cycles, you might not find out until 6 weeks. Or later. There's also the time to get an appointment, and the fact that some states (particularly those with draconian abortion laws) require waiting periods and two appointments.
I am surprised Kevin is just now learning about this quirky way of dating pregnancies and how it distorts the abortion debate. I’ve run across hundreds of discussions about this over the years.
Except Kevin is wrong. Obstetricians measure from the end of the last menstrual cycle. Developmental scientists and embryologists measure from conception. The 6 weeks to the heart beat (And 8 weeks til a heart) are from the 2nd group of scientists. So you have two weeks more while abortion is legal when it's a heart beat law.
"Obstetricians measure from the end of the last menstrual cycle."
No, they don't. A woman's cycle is always dated from the first day of her period, because this is the only firm date that is readily observable. Most women have heavy bleeding at the start of their period which gradually tapers off, thus there isn't really a firm end date, nor does this end date tell you much about a woman's cycle. Whereas the start of the period is almost always exactly 14 days after ovulation (assuming no pregnancy).
I can't speak for every law out there, but Florida's law bans abortion on a fetus with a gestational age of 6 weeks, and gestational age is calculated from the first day of the last menstrual cycle. So no, in Florida, the law is not measured from conception.
I never knew this either. Do any of the state bans specify when the n-week window starts?
Of course, women can lie about when they had their last period, can't they. I don't think that doctors can check this sort of thing. And I suspect many on the edge would do just that...
Most of the 6 week ban prosecutions are going to be about medication abortions, and are therefore going to be enforced via romantic partners and family members who turn women in. Lying to a doc may not be enough.
Any man who rats a woman out should have his nuts cut off. Yep, that's what I said.
The short duration is usually based on fetal heart beat which is measurable.
it's not a heart beat, you lying dumbass. If you had a valid viewpoint, you wouldn't need to lie, you piece of shit.
A smokescreen for the removal of bodily autonomy. Why even try explain it in any other way? Decorum?
The give-away is the banning of a medical procedure. Not an action or decision; not even the "murder of the unborn." The procedure itself.
Abortion bans mean that it is illegal to perform a medical procedure in order to remove the corpse of a dead fetus from its mother's womb. The sheer cruelty required to approach the situation in this way, even if you genuinely believe life begins at the moment of conception, is mind-boggling.
Leopards eat face comment from anti-abortion person,
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fkswdxb24pj0d1.jpeg
Wow! It's just...wow! The lack of unawareness taken to a whole new level.
For more info, see:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/11585-conception
I see many articles state that a pregnancy is measured from the first day of a woman's last menstrual period, but none I found cite the authoritative source of that rule. If it's a standard medical practice but not written into state or federal legislation, it seems like it could be challenged in court as it relates to abortion restrictions.
ETA: looks like most abortion restriction laws specify the method of calculation, most using LMP, but some allow using ultrasound.
"I see many articles state that a pregnancy is measured from the first day of a woman's last menstrual period, but none I found cite the authoritative source of that rule."
This is one of those medical standards that were created more for practicality, and then were turned into dogma for the doctors. Unless there is an actual intent to get pregnant most women don't keep track of every single time they have unprotected sex and even if they did, it's hard or sometimes downright impossible to assess an exact date when they get pregnant. Going back to the first day of the last menstrual cycle is an easier way to settle on a specific date even if the date is off from the actual conception date.
This specific circumstance happened to our family when we were trying for our 2nd child. We had a couple of miscarriages after our 1st child, and then took a long time to get pregnant again despite trying, so my spouse kept a detailed calendar of everything to follow up with her doctor. When she finally got pregnant again (she was testing herself for pregnancy on a regular basis), even though she had exact dates for everything the doctor just dismissed it as saying "it doesn't matter, our standard is to go by the first day of the last menstrual cycle", and that is the date he used to keep track of the pregnancy progression even though he and we knew the date was off by two weeks.
It's not actually "off by two weeks", it's the standard, such that the medical literature all stays aligned and consistent about what happens when during a pregnancy.
if you can state with 100% accuracy when the pregnancy started, and the medical standard says it started two weeks prior, when it was physically impossible, the medical standard is off by two weeks. You can argue why it makes sense to go by this metric regardless of the actual date, but to state that it's "not off" because it's the medical standard is pure denying reality lunacy.
If a law is written stating actual weeks as a threshold, it needs to specify how the weeks are measured as different scientists/doctors use two different methods. If not, a pro-life judge gets to use the obstetrician method and a pro-choice judge gets to use the one from embryologists.
I am one of those academic researchers who wrote this and I'm just here to say as somebody who's been a Kevin Drum fan since the Calpundit days, being the basis of a post is a bucket-list worthy accomplishment :-).
Congratulations!
Also, our closely related resarch finds that, in an experimental comparison, 6 week and 12 week bans are equally unpopular, suggesting 12 weeks as a "moderate compromise" is no longer fooling anyone.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377438841_Public_Opinion_on_Abortion_in_Post-Roe_America
Let's see. What are the sex-related issues Republicans are talking about?
Effectively, total abortion bans in selected states.
End no-fault divorce (Ben Carson)
Outlaw pornography (Johnny McEntee*)
What century are we living in? Nineteenth? Or earlier than that?
* - "The elephant in the room, which is a stain on not only society, but the entire dating culture, which is pornography. Yeah. And I think whenever America bans that, which will be happening at some point, everyone will be much better off."
Hilarious that McEntee thinks we can get rid of pornography by banning it. Child pornography is illegal and 99% of society supports that ban, yet the online pedo community continues to thrive because there isn't nearly enough law enforcement manpower to get rid of it. Given how popular adult pornography is, a ban would be impossible to enforce against more than maybe 0.001% of scofflaws.
The six week ban is inexplicable. At six weeks the fetus is barely visible with the naked eye (maybe not) and weighs less than 1g. I actually don't know because a cursory search of fetal development charts produces tables that start at 8 weeks. https://babyyourbaby.org/pregnancy/during-pregnancy/fetal-chart/
So, what makes 6 weeks special?
Most women who are concerned about an accidental pregnancy will probably keep abortion pills in the house. Or, perhaps, even take the day-after pill to be on the safe side, if they suspect something.
"So, what makes 6 weeks special?"
It doesn't sound as draconian as total abortion ban, so theocrats can pretend they are reasonable.
Usually 6 week bans are actually heart beat bans. And the basis is the classic idea that death occurs when the heart beat stops.
Plan B only works to prevent ovulation. It doesn’t have any post-ovulation activity.
The point of a 6-week ban is to effectively ban all abortion but leave IVF and all forms of contraception legal while still appearing reasonable (a whole 6 weeks!) to anyone who isn't clear on how pregnancy is dated.
Most people don’t care about this. Or they think it’s Biden’s fault. ????
I’d like to think this will be an issue which galvanizes the public to rise up and tell the MAGAts to go to hell. Silly me.
That poll saying "17% blame Biden for the end of Roe v. Wade" was a classic case of the nonsense results you get when you put people who don't pay attention to politics on the spot with a question they don't know the answer to and they guess wrong. It's meaningless.
Makes sense. The day of one's last menstrual period isn't arbitrary while trying to date conception is.