[Note: This article contains graphic language.]
According to the organizers of this year’s Women’s March on Washington, there is nothing dangerous, scary or harmful about a pregnant woman inserting a wire hanger into her vagina to kill her child. That’s why those who show up with a hanger, or hanger imagery, would get booted, even if their purpose was to protest abortion-law restrictions.
On the website of this event, it lists items that should and should not be brought. Among the latter, it says: “Coat-hanger imagery: We do not want to accidentally reinforce the right wing talking points that self-managed abortions are dangerous, scary and harmful.”
Liberals, they suggest, are fine with women using a hanger to abort their child. It’s a safe instrument. Thus have they made the case to shut down Planned Parenthood. We don’t need more abortion clinics—we need more coat hangers.
They further instructed women wearing Handmaid’s costumes that they can take a hike.
Why? Even though these outfits are being worn by women to protest abortion restrictions, the organizers contend that they are used “primarily by white women across the country.” That sends a bad message to “Black women, undocumented women, incarcerated women, poor women and disabled women.”
Pro-abortion activists have changed a lot. In 1969, four years before Roe v. Wade, 300,000 protesters marched in Washington demanding the legalization of abortion. According to the Los Angeles Times, “marchers wore coat hangers around their necks and held signs reading, ‘Never again.'”
But not everyone is convinced that hangers are safe. Dr. Jen Gunter is a Canadian-American gynecologist and pro-abortion activist.
She describes what happens when a woman or girl “thrusts it [the coat hanger] blindly upwards into the vagina.” She may not know, Gunter says, that “to get into the uterus the coat hanger has to navigate the small opening in the cervix called the os.” The problem with that is the end of the hanger is “sharp not tapered so it can lacerate and perforate.”
Let’s say the woman gets through this stage. “The uterine wall is soft and easily perforated,” and if this happens “there is a high risk of lacerating a uterine artery.” This, in turn, means that the woman could “easily bleed to death.”
That’s not all. “The other dangers with uterine perforation is the bowel. If it is punctured, it will “most certainly kill her unless she gets appropriate medical care.” This means “major surgery to drain abscesses, remove necrotic bowel, and possibly even a colostomy. The uterus will also be infected and may be damaged beyond repair.”
Even if the woman gets this far, “it is unlikely she will induce an abortion immediately.” She risks infection, and “bacteria from septic abortions often disseminates and each hour the condition remains untreated death takes a step closer.”
If the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington are right, that would make Dr. Gunter a right-wing misogynist nut. But if she is right, that would make them monsters.
