Abortion ban: Woman May be Forced to Give Birth to a Headless Baby
“It’s hard knowing that … you know I’m carrying it to bury it…you know what I’m saying,” said Nancy Davis who is 13 weeks pregnant with her second child.
When Davis was 10 weeks pregnant, she underwent her first ultrasound at Woman’s Hospital. She and her partner were thrilled to welcome their new child, but they quickly discovered that the pregnancy would not go as they had anticipated.
“It was an abnormal ultrasound, and they noticed the top of the baby’s head was missing and the skull was missing, the top of the skull was missing,” Davis explained to local news outlet WAFB-9.
Since Davis’s life was not in danger and the baby’s condition does not fall under Louisiana Department of Health’s list of qualifying conditions, she was denied an abortion.
Abortion access has been sporadic in the state in the weeks following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, as proponents of the procedure have struggled to maintain it legal. But on Friday, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the state’s nearly complete ban on abortion.
The ban does not have exceptions for abortions in cases of rape or incest. Abortions are now only permitted “to prevent the death or substantial risk of death due to a physical condition, or to prevent the serious, permanent impairment of a life-sustaining organ of a pregnant woman.”
A list of medical issues that would render a pregnancy “medically futile” and allow a pregnant person to have an abortion was published earlier this month by the Louisiana Department of Health. Medical experts condemned the list as incomplete.
A disorder known as acrania, according to Davis, has had an impact on her pregnancy. The Department of Health’s list does not specifically include it, but it does offer a broad exception for other kinds of anomalies, provided that two doctors agree that the aberration is legitimate.
Without taking a position on abortion, Davis asserts that state legislators should look about extending the list of circumstances under which an abortion is legal in the state.
Davis told WAFB-9 that she needs to make a decision quick since other states allowing abortion cut-off eligibility at 15 weeks.
