Nancy Davis, a woman who is 13 weeks pregnant, denounced that the hospital in Louisiana, USA, refused her an abortion even though doctors told her that the fetus she was carrying in her womb was due to a deformity would not survive from her skull. This as a result of abortion restrictions in several states.
“It’s painful to know that I have to give birth to bury it,” said Davis, who learned of the issue when she had her first ultrasound at Woman’s Hospital in Louisiana at 10 weeks pregnant.
“The ultrasound was abnormal, they found the baby was missing the top of the head and part of the skull, the top of the skull was not formed,” he added to local media WAFB.
The doctors’ diagnosis was anencephalya genetic abnormality in which the fetus is born without parts of the brain and skull, don’t survive more than a few minutes or hours, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“There’s nothing I wished for more than to have this baby,” said Davis, who is looking forward to her third pregnancy at 36. Therefore, she decided to prepare 5,000 euros to pay for an abortion in the women’s hospital.
However, the abortion was denied because Davis’s life was not endangered and the baby’s condition was not on the Louisiana Department of Health’s list of conditions for such a procedure.
“Without additional guidance, we must see the unique conditions of each patient and comply with the law as much as possible,” a hospital spokeswoman, Caroline Isemann, told NOLA.
Doctors advised her to go out of state, so despite time being against her, she decided to travel to Florida or North Carolina. In Florida, getting an appointment would take a long time, and North Carolina allows abortions between 24 and 26 weeks.
Unfortunately, stories like Davis’s have been on the rise since the Supreme Court in June ended the historic ruling that legalized abortion rights in the United States 50 years ago.
This ruling has led to more states beginning to pass more restrictive laws limiting women’s right to abortion.
“Never in a million years did I think it could affect me like this,” lamented the woman.