Miranda Michel’s eyes popped open on the operating table, panic gripping her body. Was she too late?...CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
Doctors had said her twins might only survive two or three minutes. She didn’t know if they’d already been born, how much time had passed, if she had missed it entirely, if they were already gone.
During the two-hour surgery, as doctors sawed through scar tissue from three previous C-sections, Miranda tried to fight the sedation, waking in alarm, then slipping back to sleep after her partner and mother-in-law assured her the babies were still safe inside her.
Miranda’s prognosis was as clear today as when she first heard it, four months ago: a zero percent chance of viability, for either twin. But Texas’ new abortion laws, which make no exception for lethal fetal anomalies, required Miranda to carry this pregnancy through to the bitter end.
Now, that end was here. Sliding in and out of consciousness, Miranda flashed through the possibilities she’d spent months preparing herself for. Maybe her babies would be born dead, so deformed the doctors wouldn’t show them to her. Maybe they’d live for a few hours.
Maybe they’d be strong enough to go to the neonatal intensive care unit. Maybe she’d at least get to say hello and goodbye, a cataclysm of joy and grief she wasn’t sure she would ever recover from.
There are no “exceptions”. Abortion restrictions are bans.
