Consequences

This story is heartbreaking and tragic. And it's sad that it took a personal tragedy for these folk to realize what the policies they supported were doing to others.

Beth and Kyle Long were so excited. After four years of trying to have a baby, through multiple rounds of expensive and difficult fertility treatments, Beth was finally pregnant.The implanted fetus had a heartbeat seven weeks in. “We’d spent years working on this, thousands of miles, thousands of dollars trying to get here, and it finally felt like it was worth it,” said Kyle in this gutting CNN story. Things still looked good at week 16, and the Ohio couple shared the happy news with their family at Christmas.

But things took a cataclysmic turn after the new year, when blood work suggested that all was not well. Further tests discovered that their baby had limb body wall complex, a rare condition in which the baby’s organs had developed outside of the body. “They will die. There’s no way there will be a life,” a doctor told CNN of the condition.

...

The pregnancy had to be terminated, but then they got hit with the next terrible news—because of Ohio’s regressive state laws, Beth’s insurance as a state employee was banned from covering the abortion. While the law allowed it when the mother’s life was endangered, the language was vague, and doctors seemingly weren’t willing to risk running afoul of the law.

Go read the rest to see what eventually happened and the impact it had on this family. 

Regressive anti-choice laws harm women and they harm families. They take an already devastating situation and make it much much worse. These healthcare choices should always be available, at every point during pregnancy, and should be made by those affected and their doctors, not right-wing politicians and religious activists.

You may not like abortion, but tough shit. That doesn't give you the right to deprive others of their fundamental rights.