Good Pregnant Women, Bad Pregnant Women

On May 19, 2026, the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the director of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Essen University Hospital, Prof. Dr. Rainer Kimmig, does not perform abortions for personal reasons. He also prohibited his staff from doing so. At Essen University Hospital, abortions are currently only permitted for so-called medical reasons: when the pregnant woman’s life is in danger or the child would not be viable after birth. After 25 years of service, Dr. Kimmig is retiring this July.

On the day the report was published, the University Hospital issued a statement indicating its intention to perform abortions in the future following Prof. Dr. Kimmig’s departure. This is being treated in many quarters as a turning point, with many reacting to it with relief. I cannot. Because if a problem has not been resolved because it was recognized as a problem and fought against, but merely disappears because the person behind it is retiring, then that is not a success. It is a tacit admission of decades of tolerance.

For a quarter of a century, the largest hospital in a major city was effectively not a place for abortions. Even in cases where criminal law applied – that is, in pregnancies resulting from sexual violence or involving minors under the age of 15 – those affected were referred to other facilities. In a region where many hospitals are run by Christian organizations and offer abortions only on a limited basis anyway, this inevitably meant wasted time, long journeys, fear, uncertainty, and medical risks for countless people. For decades, a single man was able to determine which medical services would be provided at a public university hospital – and which would not. He was able to decide that his personal convictions outweighed the physical integrity of the patients. And no one stopped him.

The Essen University Hospital writes in the aforementioned statement: „No woman in distress was left in the lurch […].” I find it hard to believe that. Section 218a of the German Criminal Code defines even the medical indication far too narrowly. And distress isn’t limited to when people are on the brink of death. This perspective divides those affected into „good” pregnant women and „bad” pregnant women: those who are about to die, and those who want an abortion „out of sheer convenience.” Social reality, however, is far removed from this, and the consequences of this demonization have serious repercussions for many people.

For decades, a single man was able to determine which medical services would be provided at a public university hospital.

I know from personal experience how quickly a lack of care can become life-threatening. When I found out I was pregnant in 2021, I was already suffering from extremely severe fibroids. A healthy uterus should weigh no more than about 120 grams at my age. Mine weighed 1.5 kilograms. Several medical professionals assumed that I would not be able to carry a pregnancy to term. A miscarriage was considered likely. Nevertheless, I was not issued a medical indication for a termination of pregnancy.

Yet it is often overlooked that a miscarriage can also be a massive physical and psychological burden. While I was waiting for my mandatory counseling appointment, the pregnancy triggered a complication: I suffered a bilateral pulmonary embolism. I nearly died. The mortality rate for a pulmonary embolism is about 30 percent. I was in the cardiology ward with heart failure, had to take high-dose anticoagulants, and was in a situation where a miscarriage would have posed an acute threat to my life. And yet, even then, no medical indication was issued.

I had to continue down the same path as people without medical risks: pregnancy conflict counseling, a medical certificate, a three-day waiting period. My suffering could have been prevented or at least significantly reduced with a medical indication. Instead, I was left alone by a system that claims to want to protect life, yet time and again not only fails real people but also actively endangers them.

So I read that the university hospital plans to perform abortions in the future. But I’m not concerned with the future – I’m concerned with the past. How many people have had to suffer unnecessarily over the past 25 years? How many experienced severe complications because they couldn’t terminate in time? How many missed the legal 12-week deadline because they couldn’t find a clinic within that narrow window? How many minors were among them, whose lives are now drastically different? How many people became pregnant as a result of rape and were forced to carry the pregnancy to term because a chief physician decided that their will mattered less than his moral standards? How many are still reminded every single day of the violence they were subjected to?

These questions will likely never be fully answered. This is an unimaginably huge problem.

That is why I consider the debate on abortion to be deeply dishonest. It is often presented as if it were simply a matter of a single medical procedure. In reality, issues of power are at stake here: Who has the right to make decisions about a pregnant person’s body? To whom is moral authority granted? And why is a chief physician’s freedom of conscience apparently considered more worthy of protection than the physical and psychological well-being of people who depend on medical care?

Professor Kimmig describes his own stance as humanistic. He argues that he could not „live with” having performed an abortion. In the WAZ-article, he emphasizes that one must not „end another person’s life, neither at the beginning nor at the end.” He draws parallels to euthanasia and sees his position as an expression of respect for life. But this line of reasoning overlooks something crucial: Pregnancies do not take place in the abstract. They happen in bodies. In lives. Under specific social, health, and psychological conditions. And a pregnancy always carries significant health risks.

When a doctor says he does not want to „end another person’s life,” in reality this often means that other people are forced to bear risks, pain, and trauma they never chose. The moral burden of his decision is borne not by him, but by those affected.

I also find the attitude toward pregnancies resulting from sexual violence deeply disturbing. Even in these cases, no abortions were performed at Essen University Hospital. Kimmig essentially explained that the child is not to blame for the circumstances of its conception. This statement is frequently used to demonstrate moral superiority. In reality, however, it shifts the focus entirely away from the person affected. The violence, the trauma, the psychological and physical consequences – all of this suddenly takes a back seat to the notion that a doctor must preserve his personal ethical purity.

In Germany, pregnancy in people under the age of 15 is generally considered a criminal matter. The University Hospital of Essen itself has failed children in acute need of help for 25 years. Where is the responsibility here, where is the solidarity?

Pregnancies do not take place in the abstract. They happen in bodies.

Abortion is not about abstract philosophy, but about real human lives. About minors. About women who have been raped. About people with serious illnesses. About pregnant women who had no strength, no financial means, or no time to travel across North Rhine-Westphalia to find a clinic that would help them. About people who do not want to subject their children to unfavorable living conditions. People who want only the best for themselves and their families.

The fact that all these people were not helped at a public university hospital should be a social scandal. University hospitals have not only a mandate to provide care but also a mandate to educate. When abortions are effectively tabooed there – the repercussions extend far beyond individual patients. It shapes generations of medical students. It signals to young medical professionals that reproductive healthcare is morally questionable. And it contributes to the healthcare situation getting worse and worse. This injustice will have repercussions for years to come, even if Rainer Kimmig retires soon. Who will take responsibility for this? Probably no one.

Abortions do not disappear just because they are made more difficult to obtain. People do not stop becoming pregnant unintentionally, since no method of contraception is 100 percent effective. Sexual violence does not stop, nor do the pregnancies that result from it. Chronic illnesses, which may lead people to choose abortion, do not disappear. The only question here is whether people have safe access to medical care – or whether they are left to fend for themselves.

That is precisely why I do not view the chief physician’s impending retirement as a cause for relief. What concerns me far more is how many people have been unnecessarily harmed over these 25 years because not only institutions, but also individuals, lost the courage to stand up to a single man. Justice would not be offering abortions „after the fact.” Justice would have been to help those affected immediately – regardless of the personal views of individual doctors.

And for many, that justice will come too late.

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