It's so angry that I was treated this way because of laws that were passed
that by men who have never been pregnant and never will be estelle's nightmare.
Started out as a dream come true After months of trying,
She became pregnant late last summer.
We were super excited because we didn't think I could get pregnant.
An ultrasound at 7.5 weeks showed all was well.
But at an ultrasound two weeks later she said there is no heartbeat,
there is no viable pregnancy stelle asked her doctor for
a standard treatment, a surgery to remove the fetal remains.
She says her doctor refused that surgery, commonly known as the D.
N. C.
Is the same procedure used to abort a living fetus.
She said well because of the new law that's passed you're gonna have to get
another ultrasound for me to be able to even do anything for you.
Yeah.
This is not news from the future.
This isn't from the handmaid's tale.
It's not from 2026 after the DeSantis administration.
This is right now.
This is already happening.
An unimaginable development in her life.
So hard, so tough.
Already nothing's gonna stop that.
And we have decided to make it far far worse
to make her carry around the remains of a fetus of the pregnancy.
She lost for literally weeks because of the legal system that we've set up.
We've got more, take a look at this.
The pain would get so severe it would be hard to walk.
She went to get a second invasive ultrasound at an imaging center describing
it later in a youtube video, someone shoves a wand in my sensitive area and
tells me, hey, you lost your baby again.
I shouldn't have to go through that twice.
Even after that second ultrasound,
would your obstetrician give you the surgical procedure?
No, no.
Still had to go get yet another ultrasound showing her dead fetus.
So you were walking around carrying a dead fetus and just emotionally carrying it
around and just knowing that there's nothing you could do.
It just feels very, it's like I can't grieve or
move past it because I'm just walking around carrying it.
This is heartless.
It's unimaginably cruel.
You know, it's coming right after last week we had the story of the 10 year
old that the right didn't care that she had been obligated by law to
give birth to the product of rape.
Well now we have this, she's talking about having to be having to emotionally and
physically carry around the remains of this fetus.
Now emotionally having to do that is absolutely devastating.
I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.
Let's also be clear, physically incredibly incredibly dangerous
to force this on someone dr Lillian Shapiro.
No.
B. G.
Y. N.
Said this about forcing this to happen.
She can develop an infection that can make her sterile and
never able to have Children again when the baby dies inside the baby
starts to release parts of its tissue that can get into the mother's blood supply.
it can cause organ failure.
It can cause death.
So let's be clear.
This isn't about life when you're risking a mother dying after she's
already lost her kid.
Okay.
This isn't about choices.
The fetus died like none of this fits in in any way to the supposed values,
reasons that they've given for forcing this horrible situation.
She had to wait two
weeks, jasmine.
It is so unimaginable and it is already this is not hypothetical,
this is not in the future.
This has already happened in tech.
Yeah, it's fun being a woman in texas.
And I remember Marlene, I used to watch her and
I think that a lot of women my age probably remember her quite fondly.
She was pretty big in the early two thousands I think.
And you know, also I live in texas and I'm a woman who was 33 a half years old.
And unfortunately Marlena story exemplifies my biggest fear now because as
I am 33 now and I'm thinking about whether or not I even want to or
can't afford to have kids in this country, especially in texas.
What if something went wrong right then,
All my options that I had before are no longer my options, right.
I would have to leave the state and thankfully I have the means to do so.
But so many people don't and even if they don't even if they do,
that shouldn't be the case, right?
We shouldn't be put in a position where our
own bodies are being weaponized against us.
And the thing with carrying a fetus for two weeks is horrifying.
And I'm sorry if this is too graphic.
But most women know you can't even leave an old tampon inside of you for
too long without the serious risk of infection walking around with a with
the fetus inside of you.
That is no longer living is horrifying.
And as a doctor pointed out, I mean it has dire consequences for the woman for
the rest of her life that she will never be able to recover from.
Yeah, 100%.
I'm glad that you you also referenced that like go to a different state
is not the solution for some, it might be that is not the solution.
I understand the like some people are angry about what's going on and that's
the thing that you throw out knee jerk that is like, let's remember the times
that we live in how rough they have been, the years that have just passed.
That is not a solution and we cannot come to tolerate an idea that you might have
some rights, some basic human decency if you're in the right spot in America, but
we're going to surrender huge sections to absolute barbarism that is not acceptable.
Now I want to read a little bit of what Marlena had to say about this after her
experience.
She says, I'm sorry if this is offensive or hurts people's feelings.
But the hardest conversation is the one most important to have my husband and
I decided to not try for
more Children while in the state of texas because of the care I received here.
Texas is a beautiful state with so many amazing people.
However the heartbeat bill puts doctors in pregnant women at risk for
getting medical care they need in a timely manner.
If a woman miss carries and cannot pass the fetus naturally,
she needs to expel it medically A D.
N. C.
Has for me in a previous miscarriage, been the safest way to prevent sepsis.
If a pregnant mom goes septic, she can die in literally hours.
Meanwhile it takes days to get multiple ultrasounds and
or just legal clearance for doctors to perform A.
D. N.
C. Thus putting pregnant women at risk while
they wait.
In addition there's the emotional toll of doing that as well.
Also by the way having to do multiple different medical procedures across
multiple days, incredibly difficult for people who are working one job let
alone two or 30 also none of that is free in America.
So it's massive additional cost that no one can actually justify.
And the right isn't even going to try to They're not going to be engaging with
this story.
They're not going to be covering it.
They're gonna deny deny deny if they don't just ignore outright the same way they
did with that 10 year old in Ohio this is the reality of what they have created.
And they're going to hide from it because they know no rational,
compassionate person would accept this as a status quo in America.
Yeah.
It's pretty terrifying when you get to a point in society where you have to
convince other human beings of your own humanity and
the fact that not only are we walking talking somehow conscious flesh,
blood and electricity, but we have feelings, right?
And I'm glad that you mentioned that because and I'm glad Marlena mentioned it,
because all the stuff that women are going through, it's not just an incredible
physical toll on our bodies, but emotionally, you know, and
especially in Marlene's case, she wanted that pregnancy, she wanted that baby.
She was put in a position where it was harmful to her body to have it.
And for a lot of women myself included, that's the fear now, you know,
that's the fear of if I get pregnant in texas and God forbid something goes wrong,
what am I going to do?
You know, am I going to be made infertile for the rest of my life?
And I can't even try again later, even if I moved to another state,
it's it's ridiculous.
Exactly, and and the idea that that would be the outcome of their supposed desire
for more Children in the most advanced country in the world.
Yeah, exactly.
In a country that even before all of these new legal developments didn't give a damn
about the maternal death rate and all of that.
And that's particularly bad here in texas as well.
We already had a really bad track record with maternal fatalities.