In a post-Roe world, we can avoid pitting mothers against babies

From a pro-life perspective, delivering a baby who is ectopic is closer to delivering a baby very prematurely because the mother has life-threatening eclampsia. A baby delivered at 22 weeks may or may not survive. A baby delivered in the first trimester because of an ectopic pregnancy definitely won’t survive. But in both cases, a pro-life doctor sees herself as delivering a child, who is as much a patient as the mother.

A pro-life approach to ectopic pregnancy may countenance similar procedures but still sees it as different from an approach that equates it to abortion. When a mother’s life is threatened by the course of her pregnancy, there is a wide gulf between a culture that assumes she and her baby are pitted against each other and one in which both are valued.

Having gone through ectopic pregnancy, I have firsthand experience of this. And what I have learned is that a pro-life response to ectopic pregnancy isn’t just a matter of what is forbidden and what is permitted, but of what can be offered to parents to make room for their grief and to treat their child with love and dignity.