If abortion were illegal, women forced to keep unwanted pregnancies would sink below the poverty level and find themselves stuck in abusive relationships.

If abortion were illegal, women who miscarry would be viewed with suspicion, and if it was determined that the woman played any role in the miscarriage, they would be jailed, and perhaps even prosecuted for manslaughter. The rest of the western world would look on in horror.

If abortion were illegal, profiteering doctors would set up shop and perform unsafe abortions without the safety of medical regulations. Women would die.

If abortion were illegal, a few kind-hearted doctors concerned about meeting women’s needs would perform abortions even with the threat of criminal sanction and in the face of death. Some might make the ultimate sacrifice, dying for their desire to help women.

If abortion were illegal, women with unwanted pregnancies would seek out home remedies. They would try to induce abortions using methods they had heard on the grapevine, passed from person to person, or order abortion-inducing pills online and take them at home. Some would take the wrong amount, or at the wrong time in the pregnancy, and end up hospitalized.

If abortion were illegal, women would travel to Mexico to buy abortion-inducing drugs, and seek out abortions in Canada.

If abortion were illegal, women with health conditions or nonviable pregnancies would be at risk of receiving sub-optimal care. Women with ectopic pregnancies, or women who are miscarrying, might find their health set aside as doctors consider the fate of their nonviable pregnancies. Even health care providers who authorize abortions to save a mother’s life might face consequences.

What if I told you that every one of these things is already happening in the United States as a result of increasing restrictions on legal abortion, the efforts of the “pro-life” movement, and the Catholic Church’s involvement in the American healthcare system?

These things are not hypothetical. These things are happening now.

If abortion were banned or further restricted, these trends would only accelerate. There would be more shady clinics, more solo chemical abortions and home remedies, more women jailed, more miscarriages investigated, more pregnant women seeing their health take second seat to that of their fetuses. Let’s keep that from happening.