Her Fetus Has No Heartbeat—They Still Won't Give Her An Abortion
South Carolina's ban is torturing a 31-year-old mom *right now*
It’s been over a week since Elisabeth Weber found out she was miscarrying. The South Carolina mother has been told by multiple doctors—across multiple emergency room visits—that her fetus has no heartbeat. That the pregnancy is doomed.
Why then, can’t she have an abortion? Why is this devastated 31-year-old being forced—right now, today—to carry a dead fetus?
“My baby is dead, they know it, and I’m still being forced to wait,” Weber tells me.
I spoke to Weber after watching the wrenching TikTok she recorded from an emergency room parking lot. According to the doctors there, she says, South Carolina’s abortion ban has tied their hands. They want to wait another week before giving her a fourth ultrasound—just to be sure her pregnancy has really ended.
Weber doesn’t blame her doctors. She knows they’re scared—of felony charges, prison time, losing their licenses.
“I could see it was breaking her heart just to say it,” Weber says of the last ER doctor she saw. The physician apologized: “I wish it was different. I wish we could help you.” When Weber told her it was okay, the doctor responded, “It’s not okay.”
And it’s not. Weber tells me she’ll be at home, and suddenly remember: “Oh my god, I have my dead baby inside me.”
She considered going to nearby North Carolina for care, but she has three daughters at home who need child care and a job she’d have to take time off from. And besides—why should she have to cross state lines when there’s a hospital just ten minutes from her house?
But it’s not just the emotional anguish that’s torturing her. Weber has Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG), a serious condition that causes persistent, extreme nausea during pregnancy. What terrifies her isn’t just the toll it’s taking—but the fact that its symptoms can mimic those of infection and sepsis.
How will she know if she’s really sick from the retained tissue, she asks, if she’s already feeling awful every day?
Weber also has asthma. She’s afraid she won’t be able to tell the difference between her usual shortness of breath and the signs of something much worse.
Republicans would have us believe that their laws protect women’s health, but what would they call what’s happening this South Carolina mom right now? She’ll have to live like this for at least another week: terrified that she’s dying and doesn’t know, emotionally brutalized by the knowledge she’s carrying a dead fetus.
Weber tells me she hopes that sharing her story will help people understand what abortion bans really do. Raised in what she calls a conservative cult, she was forced to spend parts of her childhood protesting outside of abortion clinics—with red tape over her mouth and the word ‘LIFE’ scrawled across it. So she knows what some people think about abortion, and who they believe abortion bans impact.
“I’m hoping that they can see it’s not black and white, and that this will open up people’s eyes.”
Here is what many people don't understand, MAGA does not care. They know these laws are affecting women that aren't getting elective abortions (not that it should matter). They consider those women acceptable collateral damage so that they can control women's sexuality, economic independence and body autonomy.
I escort at a clinic in the DMV area. In November, a woman came in from SC. There was no heartbeat and the hospital told her to wait 11 days before they would do anything. She, her husband, and mother made an appointment and drove up. They had gone through IVF, spent over $100K to get pregnant, and were being told that even though the doctor KNEW the baby was dead, the lawyers at the hospital would not allow them to do anything. She was afraid that waiting would impair her ability to ever conceive again. They were only able to get the treatment she needed because she had the means to travel and get the proper medical support.
Cruelty is the point. I always knew that women were hated but the veneer of civility is gone and the pure hatred is shining through. They KNOW the laws are killing women and they DGAF. This is why women are getting their tubes removed because they know they have NO control over their body if they get pregnant.