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 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!
> 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 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 😡
So sad that these anti abortion groups are happy to cause these women so much pain.
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!
> 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Terrifying. Infuriating. Disgusting. Thank you for dedication to reporting stories like this.