The below op-ed, by Cornerstone’s Shannon McGinley, was originally published in the Union Leader on July 12, 2024.
“Never let a crisis go to waste.” This political adage was recently perfectly exemplified by gubernatorial candidate Joyce Craig. It’s as if she asked herself: “Why not leverage my own personal pregnancy tragedy to justify the killing of even more babies, and in the process, draft other grieving women into my justification for unlimited abortion?”
Pro-abortion advocates have been spewing lies about the overturning of Roe for more than two years, and one of the most deceitful claims has reared its ugly head in Craig’s campaign — that women who have miscarriages will be denied health care.
In her new TV ad and an op-ed in the Union Leader, Craig describes her personal experience of miscarrying as something that empowered her to “choose to end her pregnancy,” comparing it to having an abortion.
To the thousands of Granite State women who have grieved a miscarriage like me, this is an incredibly offensive and shameless manipulation of our pain for political gain.
I was almost 11 weeks pregnant when I miscarried my child. Although surprised by this pregnancy, when we learned baby number five was on the way, our mindset quickly adapted to welcoming a new child. Our four boys even started to nickname their future sibling “Cinco.”
Early into the pregnancy, I was on a work trip when I noticed my usual pregnancy symptoms subsiding. I immediately suspected that my hormone levels were changing and something was terribly wrong. When I got home, my fears became a terrible reality. I was gripped with the terrible pains of a miscarriage, and my husband rushed me to the ER at Catholic Medical Center. We hoped in vain there was some way to save the baby, but this tiny life no longer had a heartbeat — our child had died.
It certainly wasn’t my choice to end the pregnancy nor was the choice my doctor’s. It was a tragedy that happened to me. The law did not give me agency to stop it and no law prohibited the removal of my deceased baby from my womb.
Miscarrying a child is a tragedy and totally involuntary. It has nothing to do with a woman’s decision to forcibly end the life of a normally developing baby. No state in America has abortion laws that in any way restrict the treatment of a miscarriage. Nor can Craig or her allies point to a single anecdote of a woman being blocked from miscarriage treatment by an abortion law.
That the killing of healthy children has anything to do with the heartbreak of a miscarriage is a lie the pro-abortion industry tells to fan the flames of fear over Roe’s reversal. There isn’t a shred of truth that Roe had anything to do with every woman’s right to health care after a miscarriage.
This claim by Joyce Craig is nothing more than an attempt to prey upon expectant mothers’ fears of receiving dreadful news at an ultrasound appointment. In the most awful situation imaginable, despite a mother’s desire for control, she can’t do anything to bring back her baby’s heartbeat.
The abortion industry sees opportunity in these women’s tragedies, gaslighting them to believe their “choices” have been taken away. They are never specific in terms of just how. There’s an exploitive calculation behind this obscurity. The strategy is to turn women who don’t seek abortions into thinking they are somehow victims of Roe’s reversal and, by extension, any pro-life legislation that follows. As with so many of today’s moral battles, lying is the only way to advance their radical and inhuman abortion agenda.
According to Gallup, 70% of Americans oppose abortion in the third trimester, putting most New Hampshire Democrats on the extreme end of the spectrum.
In the Granite State, despite the misleading rhetoric of the left, abortion is legal for any reason until the 24th week (aka 6 months) of gestation. After this point, the baby is viable outside the womb and abortion is only allowed in cases of fatal fetal anomalies, danger to the life of the mother, or serious threat to the mother’s physical health.
Even the four Planned Parenthood locations in New Hampshire know these narratives are completely false. Look no further than their websites to see that each one offers “miscarriage care and support,” indicating the alleged legal obstacles to this care post-Roe are entirely made up.
Joyce Craig not only disqualifies herself as a pro-woman leader, she is out of touch with 62% of Granite Staters who support restrictions on abortion at 6 months or earlier. Our state deserves a governor who will stand by basic human protections for viable pre-born babies. She is making a major political and moral miscalculation that Granite Staters should not reward on Election Day.
