At a Louisiana hospital, concerns about complying with new abortion bans in post-Roe America left a pregnant woman with a devastating diagnosis, but not an abortion.
Nancy Davis says that when she learned this month that the fetus she was carrying had a rare and fatal condition, she and her partner were devastated.
“There’s nothing I wanted more than this child,” she said.
As they weighed their options, she said, her doctor referred her to an abortion clinic. Yet what ensued in the days after she made that wrenching decision to have an abortion shows how the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the constitutional right to abortion has sown confusion and turmoil among doctors, families and officials across the country over when women can be granted exemptions to new state abortion bans.
After Ms. Davis learned that the abortion clinic in Baton Rouge had shut down, she returned to her hospital only to find out that she could not get the procedure there; the hospital has since said that the state’s new abortion bans raised concerns that doctors who treat patients with “medically futile diagnoses” remain in compliance with the law.
Ms. Davis said the hospital diagnosed her fetus with acrania, a fatal condition in which the fetus does not form a skull. “I’m carrying this baby just to bury it,” Ms. Davis said.
This week, though, a Louisiana state legislator told a local TV station that she believed Ms. Davis’s abortion was permitted under a law that allows exceptions in cases when the fetus is unlikely to survive. Based on Ms. Davis’s case, the state health department said it would update its guidelines. But by the end of the week, it was still unclear if the hospital would perform the procedure.
“They threw me to the wolves. You’re telling me all this is wrong with the baby, but, ‘OK, figure it out on your own,’” Ms. Davis said.
She added later: “Being a mother starts in the womb, it starts when you conceive, when the baby is inside of you. And I wanted to do the best thing for my child.”
Ms. Davis, 36, who is now a little over 13 weeks pregnant, and her partner were struggling to understand their options, said Ms. Davis’s brother-in-law, LaMont Cole, a city councilman in Baton Rouge, La. On Friday, he said they had hired Ben Crump, a lawyer who has represented families affected by police violence. Mr. Crump said in a statement on Friday that Ms. Davis would travel to another state to get an abortion and was starting a GoFundMe account to cover the cost. But a drive to Florida, which would be the closest state to get the procedure, would be challenging for Ms. Davis, a stay-at-home mother to two teenagers and a toddler, while also working as a content creator showcasing Black hairstyles.
“Regardless of what Louisiana lawmakers claim, the law is having its intended effect, causing doctors to refuse to perform abortions even when they are medically necessary out of fear of losing their medical licenses or facing criminal charges,”………