The Pregnancy Test: Cancer Treatment in a Post-Roe America

The Pregnancy Test: Cancer Treatment in a Post-Roe America
7/13/2022 by Helen Jupiter


A woman receives a dose of trastuzumab, a targeted cancer drug and also known by other names such as Herceptin, Herzuma and Ontruzant. It is a treatment for early and advanced breast cancer. (Karen Apricot / Flickr)

On the morning of May 2, in the hours before the Supreme Court draft striking down Roe v. Wade was leaked to the press, I sat waiting for a 30-minute infusion of Herceptin. Herceptin, one of the essential drugs I was prescribed last year when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, is a targeted therapy given along with chemo to address early-stage HER2+ breast cancer. This form of cancer is particularly aggressive, and Herceptin is a revolutionary and profoundly effective treatment that has transformed the prognosis for women with this diagnosis. I received it along with chemotherapy before undergoing surgery, and experienced what doctors describe as a pathologic complete response. In other words, my tumor disappeared completely. My access to Herceptin is undoubtedly why I experienced an excellent result.

While Herceptin has saved countless women’s lives since the first human clinical trial was performed at UCLA in 1990, it can cause fetal harm. It was this potential risk which caused my infusion to be delayed on that fateful morning. Despite the fact that my clear bag of Herceptin was within reach of my beige medical recliner and ready to be hung from my IV stand, and even though my essential lab results—including my white blood cell and platelet counts—had already come in, my HCG quantities were delayed.
Testing for HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) in the blood can detect pregnancy about 11 days after conception. I knew two things that made a pregnancy test unnecessary:

I was not pregnant.
If I was pregnant, I would choose to terminate.

I explained this to my nurse and asked to begin my infusion without waiting on the results. I was denied.

Thirty minutes went by, then 45. An hour later, I again requested to waive the test. I offered to sign a release of liability so that I could proceed with my treatment and move on with my day. Again, I was denied.

It might seem a mere inconvenience to wait an extra hour or two to receive an infusion. But my experience that morning reveals the dire consequences of placing the well-being of a fetus (in this case a hypothetical fetus) over the well-being of a woman. Why was I denied medical care—even temporarily—until I could prove I wasn’t pregnant? Where was my agency in this situation? This is just one example of the far-flung consequences of overturning Roe, of criminalizing abortion and of generally limiting women’s right to govern their own bodies.

Why was I denied medical care—even temporarily—until I could prove I wasn’t pregnant? Where was my agency in this situation?

. . . . .


It’s been over 10 weeks now since my delayed infusion, and nearly three weeks since SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade, ending 50 years of federal abortion rights. I am nearly finished with my year-long course of treatment, and I am cancer-free. But, I am not free.

No American woman is.

https://msmagazine.com/2022/07/13/cancer-treatment-post-roe-america-trastuzumab-herceptin/