24 August 2019 | New Scientist | 31Don’t miss
Last chance
Broken Nature is the
theme of the 22nd Milan
Triennial, an international
show hosted by the
Italian city that ends on
1 September. It invites us
to design a decent future
for (or plan a dignified exit
from) a world that can
barely sustain us now.Read
Fraud in the Lab
(Harvard University
Press) sees journalist
Nicolas Chevassus-
au-Louis, a former lab
researcher, investigate
cases of deception in
science, from made-up
data and manipulated
results to retouching
and plagiarism.Watch
The Science of Magic
Association holds its
summer seminar at
London’s Wellcome
Collection on 31 August,
showing how magic
can drive research into
perception, cognition
and psychological
well-being.in the US showed that free and
easily available contraception
reduces unplanned pregnancies
and abortions. None of these
politicians is trying to do that.
The laws, by and large, don’t
reduce abortion. They just make
abortion unsafe or they make
women seek abortion later,
when it costs more money to
do the procedure.
One of the biggest concerns is
abortions that are conducted for
sex-selection purposes. Why do
you think neither politicians nor
doctors should try to prohibit these
abortions?
I think it is important to look at
the whole picture of sex selection.
Most people only think about the
fetus, and as I wrote in my blog,
that means that you think the
only time a woman has value is
when she is a fetus. Everybody
forgets the woman who has seven,
eight, nine girls and is trying to
have a boy.
That isn’t something that is
confined to any culture. I know
someone who is the sixth or
seventh girl of 11. Her parents
kept trying for a boy and they have
been in the US for generations.
Multiple pregnancies and births
are extremely dangerous for
women, compared with abortion.
The way to reduce multiple
pregnancies in the quest for a
boy – because that is the real
issue – is to work on creating a
more equal society. And one of the
ways to do that is to let a woman
choose what she wants to do with
her own body.You want to change the narrative
on abortion and do away with terms
like pro-choice and pro-life. Why?
The political right has long
profited from the use of
euphemisms. I’m trying to move
away from saying I’m pro-choice.
Instead, I’m saying I’m pro-
abortion or I’m against forced
birth. I’m pro-abortion the
same way I’m pro-appendectomy.
If you need a procedure, you
need it.
Choice isn’t really part of it.
When you say “choice” or “elective
abortion” that implies that
women can easily choose not to
have an abortion. Well, no. It’s not
a choice to be pregnant or not,
it’s not like choosing between a
Toyota or a Honda, it’s a need.
And pro-life, that is obviouslyfalse. We know these people
don’t care about fetuses’ lives.
They aren’t advocating for free
prenatal care, which would reduce
stillbirth and neonatal death. And
they certainly don’t care about
women’s lives.
Recent data from the Turnaway
study [which looks at the effects
of unintended pregnancy on
women’s lives] showed that
women who didn’t get the
abortion they needed were
more likely to have worse health
outcomes, including severe
complications in pregnancy,
such as eclampsia and death.
The hatred that is directed
against women who dare to
be sexual is stunning. Forced
birtherism is a way to keep
people in poverty – or to force
them there.What do you find rewarding about
writing about evidence-based
healthcare?
I like to think I’m improving
people’s quality of life, beyond
my immediate patients. I wrote
a blog post many years ago about
an intrauterine device and later
a woman sent me an email
thanking me. Her doctor had told
her she shouldn’t have an IUD
because she had never been
pregnant and her uterus wasn’t
large enough. She printed out my
post and when she saw her doctor,
she slammed it down, and she got
her IUD.What about your personal rewards?
I know I need to find a better
balance – I’m taking most of the
summer off to be with my kids.
But I derive a lot of pleasure out
of reading and writing. I always
said in medical school that my
dream job would be to read about
new medical therapies and write
about them. ❚