Jezebel via YahooNews: “A devastating new story in the Washington Post details how Florida’s 15-week abortion ban almost killed a woman, despite the fact that the ban nominally has exceptions in place for the health of the pregnant person. The reporting comes as the state works to finalize a ban after six weeks of pregnancy, which likely presidential contender Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is expected to sign.
In mid-December, Anya Cook was nearly 16 weeks pregnant when her water broke—long before a fetus could survive outside the womb. Cook went to an emergency room in Coral Springs, Florida, where the doctor said she was experiencing a rare complication that occurs in less than one percent of pregnancies called pre-viability premature rupture of the membranes, or PPROM. Once the amniotic sac breaks, there’s a risk of infection, which can be life-threatening even in pregnancies several weeks further along than Cook’s, per the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
Typically, doctors would induce labor or perform an abortion, but the ER doctor said they couldn’t induce her due to the state’s abortion ban, so they sent her home. A nurse gave her antibiotics and promised to pray for her. The next day, Cook ended up miscarrying her daughter, who she’d planned to call Bunny, in the bathroom of a hair salon. Her husband Derick had to sever the umbilical cord by pulling it apart with his hands. Cook told the Post that blood splattered across the floor, and according to medical records, she lost roughly half the blood in her body over the course of the day.”