Jessa Duggar Seewald just revealed some intimate details about her recent miscarriage, which led to at least one news publication reporting that she had an abortion instead.
The 30-year-old former reality star updated fans via a YouTube post called “Heartbreak Over the Holidays,” which detailed what happened. Seewald said she experienced spotting during her pregnancy and then visited her OB/GYN. There, she and her husband, Ben, were told they had lost the baby.
“Nothing could have prepared me for the weight of those words in that moment,” Jessa said in the video. “At that moment I was just in complete shock. I didn’t have words. I just immediately started crying.”
“I feel like in some ways miscarriages can be so jarring because you don’t have clear signs of something going wrong,” she went on. “I had minimal spotting for 24 hours, and that was it.”
The mother of four said her doctor recommended a D&C procedure rather than waiting for the deceased child to pass naturally for fear of hemorrhaging. Seewald said just before the procedure began, she “was able to thank God in that moment for giving us this life, even if we wouldn’t be able to hold this baby in our arms.”
Certain publications and critics used this opportunity to make a case for abortion. They dubbed Seewald a hypocrite for being pro-life and undergoing the procedure while ignoring one important fact. Miscarriage occurs when a child dies in the womb naturally. In some cases, a D&C procedure (dilation and curettage, used to remove tissue from the uterus) is done to remove the already deceased baby. This is not the same as an abortion procedure that intentionally kills a living unborn child.
No pro-life laws prohibit procedures after miscarriage or those which treat non-viable ectopic pregnancies.
“Health care for me but not for thee: a Duggar had an abortion,” the headline from Arkansas Times proclaims. Parade also inaccurately describes the D&C procedure Seewald had, writing in their headline, “Jessa Duggar Reveals She Had a Life-Saving Abortion in Emotional New Video.”
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Social media followers also piled on, insisting Seewald had an abortion. In the YouTube video, the “Counting On” star shows an ultrasound screen depicting an image of the unborn child without a heartbeat prior to the procedure, clearly showing the baby was already deceased.
“Just want to point out Jessa Duggar got what is considered an illegal abortion in Arkansas, as it was not too (sic) save the mother’s life. It appears she may have also not done the 72 hour waiting & counselling (sic) period,” one Twitter user wrote. “Remember abortion will always be ‘legal’ for the wealthy.”
But many social media users pointed out that the procedure Seewald had was not, in fact, an abortion at all.
“Removing a dead baby from the womb after miscarriage is not abortion, and everyone knows that. The way pro aborts are using Jessa Duggar’s tragedy to justify their murder is monstrous,” one person shared.
“The comments here show why pro-abortion folk redefine words AND why they’re so good at it,” another commenter wrote. “Everyone absolutely knows that she’s against killing babies in the womb, and that this is different, but now the argument is about the definition rather than the truth.”