In the United States, around 1% of abortions occur after 21 weeks. Yet these abortions are intensely vilified. Recall Donald Trump’s graphic and false claim that US laws allowed doctors to “rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day”.
For two decades, Dr Shelley Sella provided abortion care in the US into the third trimester of pregnancy: that is, after 26 weeks gestation. Her new book Beyond Limits offers an intimate account of health care and politics, written from the front lines of America’s abortion wars.