Journal of Medical Ethics Argues That Pregnancy Can Be Considered a Disease

On the far end of the scale, we have the "Shout Your Abortion" nuts who want women to be proud of their abortions and publicize the fact as much as they can:

I let a bunch of kids grill me about my abortion and it was great. #ShoutYourAbortion will be releasing a children’s book about abortion in 2020! https://t.co/1LSxdyf9f8
— Amelia Bonow (@ameliabonow) December 29, 2018

Then we have women who consider fetuses to be "parasites":

Spoken like a true idiot who has never experienced a parasite growing inside of him, literally eating him from the inside out; and which, if he survives the experience, will cost him thousands of pounds over the next quarter of a century or so.
— Julie 🏳️‍🌈 Montoya 🕷️ 💙 (@JulieMontoya20) January 31, 2019

All right, then.

Then we have people like Vice President Kamala Harris, who is on a nationwide tour to promote abortion rights, which she prefers to call "reproductive care" or "women's health care."

We're not doctors, but how is killing a viable fetus health care? It doesn't "cure" the woman of anything, and it's certainly not health care for the baby.

Just when we think we've heard it all, the ironically titled Journal of Medical Ethics publishes a piece asking if pregnancy is a disease. We thought pregnancy was just the body doing what it's supposed to do, but I guess we were wrong.

Is pregnancy a disease? A normative approach | Journal of Medical Ethics https://t.co/3hG9nok3ew
— Brian D. Earp, Ph.D. (@briandavidearp) February 1, 2024

Anna Smajdor and Joona Räsänen of the University of Oslo, Norway, have published a piece arguing that yes, pregnancy can be considered a disease. Here's a portion of the abstract:

In this paper, we identify some key features of what makes something a disease, and consider whether these apply to pregnancy. We argue that there are some compelling grounds for regarding pregnancy as a disease. Like a disease, pregnancy affects the health of the pregnant person, causing a range of symptoms from discomfort to death. Like a disease, pregnancy can be treated medically. Like a disease, pregnancy is caused by a pathogen, an external organism invading the host’s body. Like a disease, the risk of getting pregnant can be reduced by using prophylactic measures. We address the question of whether the ‘normality’ of pregnancy, its current necessity for human survival, or the value often attached to it are reasons to reject the view that pregnancy is a disease.