The OBGYN that this poor lady had was a ghoul. Telling her to continue the pregnancy is unimaginably cruel, and does absolutely NOT constitute good medical care! I was disgusted when I read that-and that OBGYN isn't an outlier. There are others that think this is ok.
Additionally, the idea that doctors have to wait until a patient is close to a life threatening condition? WTF! What kind of garbage is that?! The idea of providing the best evidence based care is to PREVENT and AVOID causing harm. No wonder Texas and the US have higher maternal morbidity and mortality rates than other Western nations.
These laws, and the way we treat uterus owners and pregnant people in this country, are beyond deplorable. This is just crazy. Even if I could get pregnant-and I cannot-I would not carry a pregnancy in this country. It is not safe for uterus owners and pregnant people (and so many others that are finding their medical care illegal or unaffordable or inaccessible) to exist in this country, which is unacceptable and needs to be fought against with every fiber in our bodies.
I mean, as an RN, this is so far from how I was trained and educated to care for people. I'm glad I'm not doing clinical practice anymore. I'd have to move away from any state that treats people like this. I don't know how healthcare professionals are doing it. I couldn't and wouldn't. The laws that allow this, and the healthcare system as it is, are poisonous to decent, hardworking healthcare professionals that got into it to make a difference in people's lives.
There are actually countries in the world that take care of pregnant people and uterus owners. I read about them on occasion. It always makes me feel sad, because in my own country, we get so much less than we deserve.
The situation is unacceptable. We must fight this. Hard. Every. Day. Until these despicable laws are overturned and the garbage that makes them, held accountable; we must fight.
I was 17 weeks almost 19 years ago when we discovered anencephaly. The OB clinic cleared a doctor’s schedule as fast as possible so I could get care in a hospital setting. My family surrounded us with love and support. The two days I had to wait were absolute torture so I cannot imagine a week long wait and driving so far for care with zero family support and then having to wipe out a paycheck to cover it. Her OBGYN should also lose her license. What kind of sick doctor says that to someone in this hopeless situation? Do no harm. JFC. This caused harm. Deep harm. Inhumane. Awful. Heartbreaking. My heart goes out to this young couple. I wish there was a way to send them a little money to help bc she will for sure need counseling for the trauma of all of this. Also, I am in deep blue Seattle and a Catholic org now owns the hospital where I had a D&E so they no longer provide this type of care there. Just so infuriating. 😡
They deserve all the vitriol they get, and more. Those that promote and create the policy deserve vitriol, condemnation, and accountability. They do not deserve to live among decent people.
I miscarried three times (all three pregnancies I wanted) before the issue that was causing it was diagnosed and I was able to carry pregnancies to term. All three happened early in the first trimester so we hadn't told anyone yet. I remember how desperately sad and lonely that felt. I was able to tell my parents and sibs, who were very supportive, but I didn't want to give my employer a heads-up that I wanted to have children, so I had to act like everything was fine. My husband and I really wanted children and everyone else we knew seemed to have no difficulty having children, so we felt very alone.
These days I wonder, if I lived in an anti-abortion state, whether I'd be at risk of prosecution for those miscarriages, if some idiot decided there I bore responsibility for them.
I can't imagine the anguish that Terry and Eric went through- so much worse than what I experienced. Like Terry, I would have chosen an abortion over "having a moment" with a headless baby. The unimaginable cruelty of forcing a very ill young woman to carry her baby until she went into labor makes me so angry!
I'm disgusted with the people who suggest carrying a nonviable infant to term! It's a deplorable and vile deliberate infliction of pain that no one deserves. It's so difficult to lose a child, and anyone that rubs salt in that wound should not be making laws or practicing medicine.
> They made too much money to qualify for help from an abortion fund, but not enough money that the cost wouldn’t seriously hurt them.
For anyone who might be reading and need help now (or know someone who does), lilithfund.org was recently able to begin funding out-of-state abortions again, and does not ask any questions about your financial status (or anything else for that matter) in order to provide funding.
I am full of gratitude to Terry and Eric for sharing their story. I am not naive enough to believe that someone who spends all his free time organizing neighbors to surround clinics and shout down patients will have his eyes opened but it will spur those of us fighting to restore and legally codify PRIVACY to renew our commitment through the sharing of such tragedies.
Agreed, wholeheartedly. Additionally, an official complaint should be made to Texas Medical Board, citing the mental anguish and physical danger that the doctor is exposing the patient to. Not that they would really care. But to just accept this kind of treatment without pushing back in some way, encourages it and puts more patients at risk.
Yes. The problem we have is that it's better for everyone if all of these stories and all of the information is out there, but the women who have experienced them, and often the doctors who have cared for them, reasonably fear legal repercussions if they are outed. Which is to the great benefit of the enemy. It's a campaign of terror, and that requires everybody to stand united to protect and defend one another if we are to put a stop to it.
- people who love their friends and family regardless of their gestational timing or volume;
- people who don’t believe that the government should be involved in medical decisions;
- people who have deep respect for doctors and caregivers;
- people who revere and even depend on the separation of church and state;
- people who believe in privacy;
- people who realize that the investigative and enforcement practices required to put abortion bans into full effect - delivering the necessary jolts of terror to the population - should never be the purview of any government in the US.
A year on, it’s still hard to believe they are really doing this to us. We have to respond with solidarity.
You may want to check out the “find a physician” feature on this website of pro-birth OBGYNs to understand who is providing incomplete care, propaganda and intimidation to patients in your area! https://aaplog.org/
I am so sorry for her and that she cannot talk to anybody about it. I bet a lot of her friends would support her decision. It makes me mad when somebody says they would never get an abortion. If you aren't in that woman's shoes, you don't get to judge. And that could be that the woman is 12 weeks pregnant and just doesn't want to have a baby. If you aren't in her shoes, then you don't understand and she shouldn't have to go through a pregnancy and birth and raise a baby or give up a baby if she doesn't want to just because a minority of people in this country think it is the right thing for women to do.
Abortion is simple. If one is against it, don't get one.
As Tim Walz says: Mind Your Own Damn Business.
These people DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO MAKE DECISIONS FOR OTHERS. They are NOT in their situation, and thus DO NOT get to make decisions or decide for them.
I sort of get why they believe that a baby with no head should be born. Clearly, they have no hearts and their voters have no brains and yet they seem to be living. Sort of. Heartless, brainless bastards.
They are also ghouls who see the birth itself - the pain, the fear, the blood loss, the episiotomy and stitches and IVs - as divine retribution for her having allowed someone to impregnate her. So, baby or no baby, bring on the pain!
May the people that believe this, see the faces of everyone that they've hurt, when their time comes to answer for their behavior. May they see all their faces, all at once, and all the pain that they've caused with their behavior-be inflicted on them.
I am just now a new paid subscriber after this article, which is heartbreaking and enraging. I had an abortion pre-Roe while in college at age 20 and had to return to my home state of Hawaii from the Mainland for the abortion. The boyfriend was abusive and I had split with him before discovering the pregnancy (this was 1970). The male OBGYN refused abortion information saying "Babies are to be born." My mother, an R.N., rescued me (and my conservative father never let me forget about that abortion until his dying day).
I decided after that harrowing abortion experience never to get pregnant again. The one consolation was Roe a couple years later--and now we have this American dumpster fire.
Thank you, Jessica, for your hard and emotionally exhausting work on this issue. I was referred to you by Thom Hartmann, also subscribe to his podcast and the Hartmann Report and also subscribe to Jessica Craven's Chop Wood, Carry Water. You all deserve medals for your hard work.
Have been politically active intensely since 2000, burned out but can't quit! My boomer generation fought all these battles and thought we could move on, very very very demoralizing.
I do live in New Mexico and our governor approved the construction of a huge full service reproductive clinic on the border of Texas. Glad we could help this couple, but wish we did not have to. The terror they are feeling caused by Texan bigots is incomprehensible.
Also subscribe to Plan C, they are working hard too.
Be well. This is an ugly war. -Diana Everett, ABQ, NM
I too can remember the "before times". I'm so glad I don't have a daughter (I don't have any children at all), because it would break my heart to see her lose rights. Be treated like a second class citizen, not allowed to privacy, not even considered human or deserving enough to have self determination.
Welcome. Glad you found us. Jessica has been doing great feminist writing for years (this substack used to be called All in Her Head before Dobbs) but there's only time now to focus on this ongoing emergency. It looks like the enemy is planning to use local ordinances in New Mexico to try to get Comstock before the u.s. supreme court. I actually don't think this court would rule in their favor (although you never know) but it's humiliating to have to be "saved" by Brett Kavanaugh, of all people, and it shows that the universe has a sick sense of humor. New Mexico is ground zero for caring for Texas patients, and the rest of the country appreciates the work your state is doing. Be well.
Yes, the Party of Socialism and Liberation has been working on this local ordinances crap. They want folks to join their party but I feel I must work for the Democratic Party to make headway, thus I support PSL but volunteer for Democratic candidates.
This is America. For me the most upsetting part of the story isn't the laws (we know they're horrific) or the details of the pregnancy (nature is cruel). It's that this young couple's friends and family are all TERRIBLE people. No excuses. And we know there are millions of Americans just like them. That's how we got here. It's not something that was done to us. Terrible people vote for other terrible people, and then those people write our laws. Honestly it's amazing that a country with as many guns and as many people who go to church as we have is livable at all (although it clearly isn't in any of the areas in which those people are the majority). I don't say what I think should happen to such people because I ought not to stoop to their level. But to someone like Terry and Eric, the only advice I can give is RUN. Run as far away and as fast as you can, and start your lives over, in a different community, somewhere else where the people aren't as cruel.
The people that promote those policies need to be held accountable, and the system be turned upon them so that they can never harm another human. Ever.
If we could get rid of the Electoral College, we could get closer to actually having Majority Rule, instead of the Minority Rule from the fascists. Believe it or not, the people that promote these policies are in the minority, and are aware that their policies are extremely unpopular with the majority of Americans.
If she had told those terrible people that she was carrying a fetus without a head, whether they said it out loud or not, every damned one of them would be thinking “They did something to deserve that”, “God did that to Terry and Eric because they are sinners”, “I am better than Terry and Eric in God’s eyes”. That’s the evil of it. They blame people for their every misfortune and actually feed their own egos with the suffering of neighbors, friends and family.
I have witnessed this behavior my entire adult working life in the USA: people think you deserve it if you are sick and vulnerable for ANY reason and many healthcare personnel are very judgmental and harsh, especially women towards women unfortunately.
Yes, agreed. A lot of people would think if someone knew the details they'd be empathetic, but I think you're right that this would be the more likely reaction.
Well said, Zach. I have had these terrible people on one side of my family and have gone no contact. Almost hired an anti-choice cat sitter recently but she outed herself--after I said that religious people need to sit down and shut up about other people's reproductive decisions--and fired me, which was very fortunate because that relationship would not have succeeded anyway. And have had plenty of anti-choice acquaintances and coworkers in the past, all narcissists and domineering personalities. Ugh. It's nice to be retired and less likely to be forced to mingle with these awful people, they are everywhere.
This is sickening. It’s disgusting, and cruel. And women who have to go through experiences like this should be sitting in front of a televised Congressional Committee 24/7 with the doors locked so the legislators cannot leave the room.
If I was in that room, they'd need to soundproof it, because I'd be quite loud.
I'd let them have it, tell them all how disgusting, deplorable and horrible human beings they are. And that's for starters.
I'd bring people, and their families, and one by one, they would get to hear their stories.
For hours, with no breaks.
For several weeks, every day.
At the end, I'd make each Congressperson take an exam, to see what they've learned. An oral exam, with questioning and confrontation allowed from the people that have been hurt by their actions.
This story breaks my heart- as it SHOULD! And I've heard it repeated too many times in my position as a maternal fetal medicine specialist in a state with a strict abortion ban. I keep shouting into the void about the UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES of these horrible laws, and I agree completely with the MFM who said government has NO place in healthcare decision making.
I can't imagine how difficult your job is. I'm so sorry it has been made that way, on purpose, by terrible people that enjoy making others' lives heartbreaking and with so much needless suffering. Thank you for doing what you do.
Doesn't seem like these consequences are by any means unintended. The laws are "working as designed."
"One of the new plaintiffs in the suit, a mother of four named Samantha Casiano, was forced to carry to term a fetus that she knew would not survive after birth, spending months fund-raising for the inevitable funeral. Reporting on Casiano’s case in April, NPR spoke to Amy O’Donnell of Texas Alliance for Life. O’Donnell was at least honest. She doesn’t believe in exemptions for cases like Casiano’s. “I do believe the Texas laws are working as designed,” she said."
I agree, the cruelty is the point. The unintended part is actual death and disability of the pregnant people, as well as obstetric units closing because OB/ Gyns can't and won't work in a state that ties our hands and threatens us with prosecution. When they can't get anyone to care for these people who are forced into birth ( which is internationally known as a human rights violation), what then?
I really don't think they care. They'll just blame the doctors and not these laws. Jessica's already written about their plan for when the first patient does die by doing just that. Shows they know this is a consequence but unintended it certainly is not. There's no reasoning with these people because it's all according to "God's plan." It's literally part of their religious belief that women must suffer for their "sins" according to natural law. That's how evil they are.
Thank you for sharing this story and for the link to support the couple. As an OBGYN, I'm horrified by their OBGYN's recommendation to carry the pregnancy, bascially ignoring the advice of the Maternal Fetal Medicine physician who wanted, above all, to protect Terry's health. It's sickening that a physician would say such a thing, knowing that Terry's health was worsening and that waiting might impact Terry's ability for future fertility (children) as well. I'm so sad that we are here.
Thanks, Jessica. I'll donate. I just donated to an assistant to Thom Hartmann who was bashed in the head with a metal pipe and lost all his teeth. Not a great summer so far.
The OBGYN that this poor lady had was a ghoul. Telling her to continue the pregnancy is unimaginably cruel, and does absolutely NOT constitute good medical care! I was disgusted when I read that-and that OBGYN isn't an outlier. There are others that think this is ok.
Additionally, the idea that doctors have to wait until a patient is close to a life threatening condition? WTF! What kind of garbage is that?! The idea of providing the best evidence based care is to PREVENT and AVOID causing harm. No wonder Texas and the US have higher maternal morbidity and mortality rates than other Western nations.
These laws, and the way we treat uterus owners and pregnant people in this country, are beyond deplorable. This is just crazy. Even if I could get pregnant-and I cannot-I would not carry a pregnancy in this country. It is not safe for uterus owners and pregnant people (and so many others that are finding their medical care illegal or unaffordable or inaccessible) to exist in this country, which is unacceptable and needs to be fought against with every fiber in our bodies.
I mean, as an RN, this is so far from how I was trained and educated to care for people. I'm glad I'm not doing clinical practice anymore. I'd have to move away from any state that treats people like this. I don't know how healthcare professionals are doing it. I couldn't and wouldn't. The laws that allow this, and the healthcare system as it is, are poisonous to decent, hardworking healthcare professionals that got into it to make a difference in people's lives.
There are actually countries in the world that take care of pregnant people and uterus owners. I read about them on occasion. It always makes me feel sad, because in my own country, we get so much less than we deserve.
The situation is unacceptable. We must fight this. Hard. Every. Day. Until these despicable laws are overturned and the garbage that makes them, held accountable; we must fight.
I was 17 weeks almost 19 years ago when we discovered anencephaly. The OB clinic cleared a doctor’s schedule as fast as possible so I could get care in a hospital setting. My family surrounded us with love and support. The two days I had to wait were absolute torture so I cannot imagine a week long wait and driving so far for care with zero family support and then having to wipe out a paycheck to cover it. Her OBGYN should also lose her license. What kind of sick doctor says that to someone in this hopeless situation? Do no harm. JFC. This caused harm. Deep harm. Inhumane. Awful. Heartbreaking. My heart goes out to this young couple. I wish there was a way to send them a little money to help bc she will for sure need counseling for the trauma of all of this. Also, I am in deep blue Seattle and a Catholic org now owns the hospital where I had a D&E so they no longer provide this type of care there. Just so infuriating. 😡
I think the doctor should lose their license, too. I was infuriated when I read that.
Fight. Back.
The State of Texas and the United States have and will continue to fail these people. That is wholly unacceptable and we must stop them.
So sad that these anti abortion groups are happy to cause these women so much pain.
They deserve all the vitriol they get, and more. Those that promote and create the policy deserve vitriol, condemnation, and accountability. They do not deserve to live among decent people.
I miscarried three times (all three pregnancies I wanted) before the issue that was causing it was diagnosed and I was able to carry pregnancies to term. All three happened early in the first trimester so we hadn't told anyone yet. I remember how desperately sad and lonely that felt. I was able to tell my parents and sibs, who were very supportive, but I didn't want to give my employer a heads-up that I wanted to have children, so I had to act like everything was fine. My husband and I really wanted children and everyone else we knew seemed to have no difficulty having children, so we felt very alone.
These days I wonder, if I lived in an anti-abortion state, whether I'd be at risk of prosecution for those miscarriages, if some idiot decided there I bore responsibility for them.
I can't imagine the anguish that Terry and Eric went through- so much worse than what I experienced. Like Terry, I would have chosen an abortion over "having a moment" with a headless baby. The unimaginable cruelty of forcing a very ill young woman to carry her baby until she went into labor makes me so angry!
I'm disgusted with the people who suggest carrying a nonviable infant to term! It's a deplorable and vile deliberate infliction of pain that no one deserves. It's so difficult to lose a child, and anyone that rubs salt in that wound should not be making laws or practicing medicine.
> They made too much money to qualify for help from an abortion fund, but not enough money that the cost wouldn’t seriously hurt them.
For anyone who might be reading and need help now (or know someone who does), lilithfund.org was recently able to begin funding out-of-state abortions again, and does not ask any questions about your financial status (or anything else for that matter) in order to provide funding.
I am full of gratitude to Terry and Eric for sharing their story. I am not naive enough to believe that someone who spends all his free time organizing neighbors to surround clinics and shout down patients will have his eyes opened but it will spur those of us fighting to restore and legally codify PRIVACY to renew our commitment through the sharing of such tragedies.
I want her to name her OB/GYN. Women who are pro-choice should know not to go to them because they won't get the compassionate care they deserve.
Agreed, wholeheartedly. Additionally, an official complaint should be made to Texas Medical Board, citing the mental anguish and physical danger that the doctor is exposing the patient to. Not that they would really care. But to just accept this kind of treatment without pushing back in some way, encourages it and puts more patients at risk.
She needs to get a new doctor, post haste.
Yes. The problem we have is that it's better for everyone if all of these stories and all of the information is out there, but the women who have experienced them, and often the doctors who have cared for them, reasonably fear legal repercussions if they are outed. Which is to the great benefit of the enemy. It's a campaign of terror, and that requires everybody to stand united to protect and defend one another if we are to put a stop to it.
It IS a campaign of terror, Zach.
A zealous, well funded minority is terrorizing:
- women and girls;
- people who may impregnate them;
- people who love their friends and family regardless of their gestational timing or volume;
- people who don’t believe that the government should be involved in medical decisions;
- people who have deep respect for doctors and caregivers;
- people who revere and even depend on the separation of church and state;
- people who believe in privacy;
- people who realize that the investigative and enforcement practices required to put abortion bans into full effect - delivering the necessary jolts of terror to the population - should never be the purview of any government in the US.
A year on, it’s still hard to believe they are really doing this to us. We have to respond with solidarity.
I meant to say ANY US government - federal, state or local. Separate birth and state!
You may want to check out the “find a physician” feature on this website of pro-birth OBGYNs to understand who is providing incomplete care, propaganda and intimidation to patients in your area! https://aaplog.org/
I am so sorry for her and that she cannot talk to anybody about it. I bet a lot of her friends would support her decision. It makes me mad when somebody says they would never get an abortion. If you aren't in that woman's shoes, you don't get to judge. And that could be that the woman is 12 weeks pregnant and just doesn't want to have a baby. If you aren't in her shoes, then you don't understand and she shouldn't have to go through a pregnancy and birth and raise a baby or give up a baby if she doesn't want to just because a minority of people in this country think it is the right thing for women to do.
Abortion is simple. If one is against it, don't get one.
As Tim Walz says: Mind Your Own Damn Business.
These people DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO MAKE DECISIONS FOR OTHERS. They are NOT in their situation, and thus DO NOT get to make decisions or decide for them.
I sort of get why they believe that a baby with no head should be born. Clearly, they have no hearts and their voters have no brains and yet they seem to be living. Sort of. Heartless, brainless bastards.
They give the undead a bad name.
They are also ghouls who see the birth itself - the pain, the fear, the blood loss, the episiotomy and stitches and IVs - as divine retribution for her having allowed someone to impregnate her. So, baby or no baby, bring on the pain!
May the people that believe this, see the faces of everyone that they've hurt, when their time comes to answer for their behavior. May they see all their faces, all at once, and all the pain that they've caused with their behavior-be inflicted on them.
6/13/23
Dear Jessica and Subscribers:
I am just now a new paid subscriber after this article, which is heartbreaking and enraging. I had an abortion pre-Roe while in college at age 20 and had to return to my home state of Hawaii from the Mainland for the abortion. The boyfriend was abusive and I had split with him before discovering the pregnancy (this was 1970). The male OBGYN refused abortion information saying "Babies are to be born." My mother, an R.N., rescued me (and my conservative father never let me forget about that abortion until his dying day).
I decided after that harrowing abortion experience never to get pregnant again. The one consolation was Roe a couple years later--and now we have this American dumpster fire.
Thank you, Jessica, for your hard and emotionally exhausting work on this issue. I was referred to you by Thom Hartmann, also subscribe to his podcast and the Hartmann Report and also subscribe to Jessica Craven's Chop Wood, Carry Water. You all deserve medals for your hard work.
Have been politically active intensely since 2000, burned out but can't quit! My boomer generation fought all these battles and thought we could move on, very very very demoralizing.
I do live in New Mexico and our governor approved the construction of a huge full service reproductive clinic on the border of Texas. Glad we could help this couple, but wish we did not have to. The terror they are feeling caused by Texan bigots is incomprehensible.
Also subscribe to Plan C, they are working hard too.
Be well. This is an ugly war. -Diana Everett, ABQ, NM
Welcome!
I too can remember the "before times". I'm so glad I don't have a daughter (I don't have any children at all), because it would break my heart to see her lose rights. Be treated like a second class citizen, not allowed to privacy, not even considered human or deserving enough to have self determination.
Welcome. Glad you found us. Jessica has been doing great feminist writing for years (this substack used to be called All in Her Head before Dobbs) but there's only time now to focus on this ongoing emergency. It looks like the enemy is planning to use local ordinances in New Mexico to try to get Comstock before the u.s. supreme court. I actually don't think this court would rule in their favor (although you never know) but it's humiliating to have to be "saved" by Brett Kavanaugh, of all people, and it shows that the universe has a sick sense of humor. New Mexico is ground zero for caring for Texas patients, and the rest of the country appreciates the work your state is doing. Be well.
Yes, the Party of Socialism and Liberation has been working on this local ordinances crap. They want folks to join their party but I feel I must work for the Democratic Party to make headway, thus I support PSL but volunteer for Democratic candidates.
This is America. For me the most upsetting part of the story isn't the laws (we know they're horrific) or the details of the pregnancy (nature is cruel). It's that this young couple's friends and family are all TERRIBLE people. No excuses. And we know there are millions of Americans just like them. That's how we got here. It's not something that was done to us. Terrible people vote for other terrible people, and then those people write our laws. Honestly it's amazing that a country with as many guns and as many people who go to church as we have is livable at all (although it clearly isn't in any of the areas in which those people are the majority). I don't say what I think should happen to such people because I ought not to stoop to their level. But to someone like Terry and Eric, the only advice I can give is RUN. Run as far away and as fast as you can, and start your lives over, in a different community, somewhere else where the people aren't as cruel.
The people that promote those policies need to be held accountable, and the system be turned upon them so that they can never harm another human. Ever.
If we could get rid of the Electoral College, we could get closer to actually having Majority Rule, instead of the Minority Rule from the fascists. Believe it or not, the people that promote these policies are in the minority, and are aware that their policies are extremely unpopular with the majority of Americans.
If she had told those terrible people that she was carrying a fetus without a head, whether they said it out loud or not, every damned one of them would be thinking “They did something to deserve that”, “God did that to Terry and Eric because they are sinners”, “I am better than Terry and Eric in God’s eyes”. That’s the evil of it. They blame people for their every misfortune and actually feed their own egos with the suffering of neighbors, friends and family.
I have witnessed this behavior my entire adult working life in the USA: people think you deserve it if you are sick and vulnerable for ANY reason and many healthcare personnel are very judgmental and harsh, especially women towards women unfortunately.
Yes, agreed. A lot of people would think if someone knew the details they'd be empathetic, but I think you're right that this would be the more likely reaction.
Well said, Zach. I have had these terrible people on one side of my family and have gone no contact. Almost hired an anti-choice cat sitter recently but she outed herself--after I said that religious people need to sit down and shut up about other people's reproductive decisions--and fired me, which was very fortunate because that relationship would not have succeeded anyway. And have had plenty of anti-choice acquaintances and coworkers in the past, all narcissists and domineering personalities. Ugh. It's nice to be retired and less likely to be forced to mingle with these awful people, they are everywhere.
This is sickening. It’s disgusting, and cruel. And women who have to go through experiences like this should be sitting in front of a televised Congressional Committee 24/7 with the doors locked so the legislators cannot leave the room.
If I was in that room, they'd need to soundproof it, because I'd be quite loud.
I'd let them have it, tell them all how disgusting, deplorable and horrible human beings they are. And that's for starters.
I'd bring people, and their families, and one by one, they would get to hear their stories.
For hours, with no breaks.
For several weeks, every day.
At the end, I'd make each Congressperson take an exam, to see what they've learned. An oral exam, with questioning and confrontation allowed from the people that have been hurt by their actions.
This story breaks my heart- as it SHOULD! And I've heard it repeated too many times in my position as a maternal fetal medicine specialist in a state with a strict abortion ban. I keep shouting into the void about the UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES of these horrible laws, and I agree completely with the MFM who said government has NO place in healthcare decision making.
I can't imagine how difficult your job is. I'm so sorry it has been made that way, on purpose, by terrible people that enjoy making others' lives heartbreaking and with so much needless suffering. Thank you for doing what you do.
Doesn't seem like these consequences are by any means unintended. The laws are "working as designed."
"One of the new plaintiffs in the suit, a mother of four named Samantha Casiano, was forced to carry to term a fetus that she knew would not survive after birth, spending months fund-raising for the inevitable funeral. Reporting on Casiano’s case in April, NPR spoke to Amy O’Donnell of Texas Alliance for Life. O’Donnell was at least honest. She doesn’t believe in exemptions for cases like Casiano’s. “I do believe the Texas laws are working as designed,” she said."
You Cannot Hear These 13 Women’s Stories and Believe the Anti-Abortion Narrative https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/opinion/abortion-law-texas-lawsuit.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
I agree, the cruelty is the point. The unintended part is actual death and disability of the pregnant people, as well as obstetric units closing because OB/ Gyns can't and won't work in a state that ties our hands and threatens us with prosecution. When they can't get anyone to care for these people who are forced into birth ( which is internationally known as a human rights violation), what then?
I really don't think they care. They'll just blame the doctors and not these laws. Jessica's already written about their plan for when the first patient does die by doing just that. Shows they know this is a consequence but unintended it certainly is not. There's no reasoning with these people because it's all according to "God's plan." It's literally part of their religious belief that women must suffer for their "sins" according to natural law. That's how evil they are.
Thank you for sharing this story and for the link to support the couple. As an OBGYN, I'm horrified by their OBGYN's recommendation to carry the pregnancy, bascially ignoring the advice of the Maternal Fetal Medicine physician who wanted, above all, to protect Terry's health. It's sickening that a physician would say such a thing, knowing that Terry's health was worsening and that waiting might impact Terry's ability for future fertility (children) as well. I'm so sad that we are here.
Thank you for doing your job, as I said to another physician above, I'm so sorry you have to see this become acceptable practice for some physicians.
I couldn't find the link to support this couple.
Here you go. Posted from the link Jessica put.
https://cash.app/$TerryandEric
right on, Jane! I need to go back and find the link to support this sweet couple.
Seriously think these people should be screened out before they even begin their residencies. It is outrageous they can practice medicine at all!
They seriously want her to cradle, a dead, headless baby? These people are sick beyond measure and clearly in the business of traumatizing women.
A few people have asked for a way to help Terry & Eric - they set up a CashApp account for anyone interested: https://cash.app/$TerryandEric
Thanks, Jessica. I'll donate. I just donated to an assistant to Thom Hartmann who was bashed in the head with a metal pipe and lost all his teeth. Not a great summer so far.
Yikes. I hope that's not a sign of things to come.