Perhaps the most powerful argument for legal abortion throughout history has been the threat of what happens when it is banned: Countless women will die from backstreet abortions, we are told, because that is what used to happen before it was legalized. Legalization, so the received wisdom goes, put an end to all that.
This argument still has considerable traction in the U.S., where abortion bans are once again a live option in some states. One need not look far to find scaremongering about all the American women — especially poorer women and women of color — who will die in the new Confederate States of Gilead.
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