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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEven Exceptions To Abortion Bans Pit A Mother's Life Against Doctors' Fears
Layla Houshmand was eight weeks pregnant in the spring of 2021 when she woke up to find her field of vision smeared with a hazy sheen, like Vaseline rubbed on the lens of a camera. She was already worried about her own health. Shed spent the day before nursing herself through the pain of a migraine. But now the headache was worse and her vision was blurring and Houshmand was even more scared. Then the vomiting began. Nothing would stay down. During one 90-minute appointment with an ophthalmologist, she remembered vomiting 20 times.
Something was clearly going horribly wrong with Houshmands body. Her ophthalmologist suspected a stroke in her optic nerve and told her the condition can be caused by pregnancy, but Houshmand was stuck in a Catch-22: The pregnancy was now also preventing treatment. Doctors told her that she needed steroids and blood thinners and a specific type of MRI that could make sure there wasnt something even more serious happening. But she couldnt get any of those things because they could endanger her fetus.
Houshmand decided she wanted an abortion. She wasnt willing to risk losing eyesight and continuing to be in pain, vomiting over and over, with no solution
not for an eight-week pregnancy. But her doctors couldnt help her abortion wasnt even an option they brought up. Houshmand had to find a private clinic that could treat her on her own. After the abortion she found out the truth: She had a life-threatening infection in her optic nerve.
As long as she was pregnant, none of the doctors Houshmand encountered would do the things that needed to happen to diagnose her or treat her. Without an abortion, she was just a sick pregnant woman, rather than a woman who needed an abortion to save her life.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/even-exceptions-to-abortion-bans-pit-a-mothers-life-against-doctors-fears/
skylucy
(3,739 posts)bucolic_frolic
(43,181 posts)They see women as cows. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's what I think they see. Udders and breeders.
onecaliberal
(32,863 posts)Deep State Witch
(10,429 posts)Where abortion is legal, and we have one of the best hospitals in the world (Johns Hopkins) in Baltimore! I'm sure that the Catholic hospital (probably Holy Cross) could have referred her there.
JFC.