Why Post-‘Roe’ Abortion Ban Exemptions Are SAVING Lives – You Won’t Believe How!

This pregnancy felt different.

After the pain of more than a dozen miscarriages, Anya Cook was 16 weeks old. She and her husband, Derick Cook, spent a Sunday last December sharing the news with their parents and looking at cribs.

As they were leaving a restaurant in Coral Springs, Florida, that night, Cook’s water broke. Her husband rushed her to the nearest emergency room.

Cook, 36, still believed that the baby they had nicknamed “Bunny” could be saved. Doctors told him that he would miscarry in the next 24 hours, he said, and that the fetus was too premature to survive.

The early rupture of his amniotic sac left Cook at risk of infection and complications, including bleeding. But his pregnancy was beyond Florida’s 15-week abortion restriction at the time and an ultrasound showed the fetus still had a detectable heart rate, according to hospital records Cook shared with the Tampa Bay Times.

Although Florida law allowed abortions to protect the mother’s health, Cook said, a doctor told her she would risk her license if she induced labor, essentially performing an abortion. He gave her two injections of antibiotics to reduce the risk of infection and sent her home, she said.

“I told him, ‘You’re going to let me die,’” he said.

Every state that prohibits or restricts abortion has an exception to protect the health of the mother. Allowing abortions in such cases, or in the case of rape or incest, makes abortion law more acceptable to the majority of the American public, who, polls show, do not support direct bans. When Florida lawmakers approved this year to tighten the 15-week ban to a six-week limit, they added exceptions for rape, incest and human trafficking to the existing exemptions to protect the health of the mother.

But recent history in other states suggests few women will be able to take advantage of such exceptions if the state Supreme Court upholds the new Florida law, which is on hold while subject to legal challenges. There is also concern that patients with pregnancy complications may be denied care.

In Alabama and Mississippi, which adopted stricter bans with some exceptions after the US Supreme Court. Roe vs. Wade as of June 2022, there have been no reported abortions since July 2022, according to WeCount, a reporting effort organized by abortion rights group Family Planning Society. The project uses data from clinics, hospitals and telemedicine providers and excludes from its count cases where women traveled to other states for abortions or obtained abortion pills.

In Texas, 13 women who had pregnancy complications sued the state medical board after being denied an abortion. testifying to the strict state restrictions put their lives in danger.

Women’s health advocates fear Florida is heading in the same direction, with more pregnant women’s lives at risk.

“The exceptions are a rhetorical trick, really,” said Laurie Bertram Roberts, executive director of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, a group that supports abortion rights. “Essentially, they’re a tool for Republican lawmakers to say, ‘Well, those of you who care that so-called good abortions aren’t available to you.’

state senator erin grallA Republican who sponsored Florida’s six-week ban bill, said her legislation contains exceptions “to recognize that some women experience unplanned pregnancies because of heinous criminal acts committed by others, and to suggest that the exceptions are a showcase of incorrect facts. ”

Data doesn’t tell the whole story

More than 82,000 abortions were performed in Florida last year, according to data collected by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.

Those included 115 cases in which rape was cited as the reason for the abortion and seven that cited incest. No reported abortions were related to human trafficking.

If Florida’s six-week ban moves forward, rape and incest victims would have to provide their doctor with a copy of a restraining order, police report, medical record, court order, or other documentation to get an abortion after that window. .

Yet two-thirds of sexual assault victims do not report the crime, studies show, which means that there would be no police report. It is estimated that 8 out of 10 rapes are committed by someone known to the victimoften leaving victims fearful of retaliation if they report the crime.

Florida has a long-standing law that allows abortions when a fetus has fatal abnormalities. But there are no exceptions for serious genetic defects, deformities or abnormalities, which were cited as the reason for 578 abortions in the state last year.

Approximately 60% were performed in the second trimester, when tests such as fetal echocardiograms or maternal serum analysis were performed. are normally performed. The result of those tests would come too late if Florida’s six-week ban is upheld.

It is not clear how many women who miscarried last year in Florida would have had their health endangered if their pregnancies had continued.

Pregnancy and labor carry serious health risks, including high blood pressure, bleeding, and blood clots. More than 1,200 women He died of causes related to pregnancy or childbirth in the United States in 2021. In Florida, in 2020, there were 21 pregnancy-related parental deaths per 100,000 live births, and the death rate among black pregnant women more than doubled .

TO can study by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas-Austin identified dozens of cases in 14 states, including Florida, where substandard care due to abortion restrictions led to hospitalizations and preventable complications. Some of those patients almost died.

“Health care providers described feeling moral distress when they were unable to provide evidence-based care, and some reported considering moving their practices to a state where abortion remains legal,” the study states.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 2022 warned that physicians must be able to make evidence-based decisions without “fear of prosecution, loss of license or fines.”

Grall, the Republican state senator, said Florida has long-established laws to protect the life of the mother, so there should be no confusion when an abortion is necessary.

“Florida should always be a life-protecting state, and any doctor, hospital or lawyer who seeks to take a crystal-clear statute and tries to cloud its interpretation to score political points should face appropriate punishment.” she said.

TO June KFF Survey found that 61% of OB/GYNs who practice in states with abortion restrictions are concerned about legal risk when deciding whether to perform an abortion.

“It doesn’t make any medical sense,” said Jennifer Griffin, a Tampa physician who performs abortions. “These politicians are not making policy based on science; They are based on religion.

“I went to a really dark place”

Cook, the woman whose water broke at 16 weeks pregnant, barely slept that night, she said, after being denied treatment at Broward Health Coral Springs.

The more she read online about her condition, the more convinced she was that she was going to die.

“I went to a really dark place,” he said.

Her miscarriage occurred when she was at a hair appointment late in the morning. She ran to the bathroom.

“I put my hands on my knees and I heard my daughter hit the toilet,” she said. Cook did not dare to look down.

Her husband called 911. She told him she needed help expelling the placenta she felt hanging from her uterus.

He removed part of the organ with his bare hands, he said. There was a snap as the umbilical cord was released, Cook said.

Blood was gushing from the white porcelain toilet. A nurse in the room told Cook to squeeze her body as hard as she could.

An ambulance took Cook to Miramar Memorial Hospital. Part of her placenta was still inside her. When doctors removed it, she began bleeding profusely, hospital records show. Doctors estimated that she lost more than half a gallon of blood, an amount that can be fatal.

Cook ended up in intensive care. He needed four units of blood and was put on a ventilator, records show.

Doctors feared they would have to remove her uterus, which would mean she could never have a child, Cook said. Instead, they blocked some of the blood vessels and inserted a medical balloon to stop the bleeding.

He stayed in the hospital for five days.

In May, Cook said, she was interviewed by officials from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration and told her story about the limited care she received at Broward Health Coral Springs the night her water broke. She said she was told they were reviewing the hospital’s handling of her emergency. Spokesman Bailey Smith said the agency cannot comment on the ongoing investigations.

Jennifer Smith, Broward Health’s vice president of marketing and corporate communications, said in an email that the hospital’s handling of the case was appropriate. She said the ER doctor contacted Cook’s OB/GYN, who recommended antibiotic treatment. Cook was instructed to see her doctor that day or return to the emergency room if her condition worsened, Smith said.

“We empathize with Ms. Cook and the millions of women who annually suffer the unimaginable loss of miscarriage; however, we cannot speculate whether Ms. Cook complied with her discharge instructions to see her private OB/GYN on the same day as her discharge,” Smith said.

But Cook said she had already called her OB/GYN before she initially went to the hospital and that it was after 2 a.m. when she was released. She miscarried around noon later that day.

“It’s absurd how they’re still trying to defend it,” he said.

Bunny was conceived through in vitro fertilization. That pregnancy was the most advanced Cook had ever had.

“To come this far and lose her like that was really traumatic,” he said.

Cook has a stepson, but she’s not ready to give up trying for a biological child. She is still angry about her experience.

“I think about my niece and my future children,” said Cook, who is the oldest of six sisters. “I can’t imagine my sisters or any female family member having to go through this.”

This article was produced in collaboration with the Tampa Bay Times.