Doctors Put Abortion Law Before My Life

I was afraid I'd die miscarrying, as medics fear ending pregnancies could jeopardize their careers

- ERIN A. SNIDER

FOR NEARLY FIVE HOURS I ALTERNATE between lying in a fetal position on our bathroom floor and curling up against the wall, shivering uncontrollably one moment and burning up the next.

I vomit three times on the floor. I rock back and forth in tears, repeating out loud, to myself, to God, to my husband and my dog on the other side of the door, to please, please make this stop. The pain is so blinding that I think I'm hallucinating.

It goes on so long, I don't have the energy to scream, at what feels like every single bone in my body crumbling, my body breaking apart, collapsing into itself. Between each new wave of pain that comes, I try to focus on the broken grout between the floor tiles.

I pass out twice. I am terrified that I will die.

No one should have to fear they may die because of a miscarriage. And yet, for women like me in the United States, in Texas, that fear is very real.

The day before-Labor Day-we had checked into the ER after I began to bleed at work. At nine weeks pregnant, I feared the worst but hoped it was nothing. Panicking at my desk, I immediately called my best friend, who told me to go straight to the emergency room.

At the ER, that panic deepened. The Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, had been passed three months earlier and, for the first two hours in the waiting room, I could only think of how that decision would now trickle down to me, here.

My brain anxiously cycled through every bad scenario that could happen. My concern wasn't misplaced. 

I was eventually called back for bloodwork and asked questions that were probably standard, but sounded increasingly cold and accusatory, about why I was there. I repeated for what seemed the tenth time that I thought I was having a miscarriage.