NPR on Tuesday published a lengthy account of what one Texas woman describes as a "dystopian nightmare" that she suffered thanks to the state's anti-abortion laws.
In a lengthy interview, Houston resident Elizabeth Weller revealed that her 17-week-old pregnancy was thrown into crisis when the water prematurely broke, which resulted in a near total loss of amniotic fluid in her womb and all but doomed her child's chances of surviving until birth.
Weller decided that she wanted to end the pregnancy because, even if her fetus defied the odds and survived, it would undergo severe pain for weeks due to insufficient amniotic fluid and would then very likely have underdeveloped lungs that would make its survival outside the womb difficult.
However, because there was still a fetal heartbeat, Weller was not immediately given care to terminate the pregnancy, and medical officials essentially were forced to wait until the fetus died or until Weller became sick enough to justify intervention.
"At first I was really enraged at the hospital and administration," Weller told NPR. "To them my life was not in danger enough."
It was only after Weller began discharging fluid whose odor was "enough to make her retch" that she was approved to have the pregnancy terminated.
Dr. Alan Peaceman, a professor of maternal-fetal medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, tells NPR that it is simply cruel to force a woman in Weller's position to undergo such distress.
"That's torture to to have to carry a pregnancy which has such a low chance of survival," he says. "Most women would find it extremely difficult and emotionally very challenging. And that's a big part of this problem, when we as physicians are trying to relieve patients' suffering. They're not allowed to do that in Texas."
