I know why. What a cruel place to get pregnant.
"Basically, the doctor looked at me and was like, well, the baby's underdeveloped," says Anna. "Even with the best NICU care in the world, they're not going to survive."
And as painful as it was to hear that, the doctors told Anna there was another urgent concern.
" 'You're at a high chance of going septic or bleeding out,' " she says the doctors told her — a risk of infection or hemorrhage, which could become deadly. " 'And unfortunately, we recommend termination, but we cannot provide you one here in Texas because of this law.' "
In Anna's situation, a patient would normally be offered two options: wait and watch for signs of danger, or terminate the pregnancy, which is usually the safest option and most guaranteed to preserve future fertility.
But under Texas law, abortions are allowed at that stage only for severe medical emergencies, defined as when a patient is "in danger of death or a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function."
In the emergency room on their wedding night, Anna and Scott say the doctors appeared nervous and concerned but could do little to help them.
"I remember being like, what, why can't you just do this?" says Anna. "They couldn't even say the word 'abortion.' I could see the fear in these doctors' eyes that they were just so scared to even talk about it."
"They were typing stuff out on their phones and showing it to us," adds Scott, saying that the doctors were afraid to even be overheard helping them plan an abortion.
The next day, Anna's OB-GYN needed a plan to get Anna to a place where she could get the procedure as quickly as possible. They ruled out some nearby states, including Oklahoma and Arkansas, with
mandatory waiting periods as long as three days.
"So there's two options," says Scott. "There's New Mexico and there's Colorado. Would we rather have her go into labor on a plane or, like, out by Midland in a car?"
It's been six months since the Texas law banning almost all abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy took effect. Doctors and patients feel frustrated as they navigate the new legal environment.
www.kwit.org
Another story.
For one Austin woman, a rare chromosomal disorder meant she had to choose between having a stillbirth or crossing state lines to have an abortion.
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