State lawmakers ‘don’t see the mourning and the grieving that these moms’ experience after getting a heartbreaking diagnosis, Breanna Cecil tells Kelly Rissman
A Tennessee woman who was denied an abortion despite a fatal abnormality says the state’s anti-abortion laws resulted in her losing an ovary, a fallopian tube and her hopes for a large family.
“The state of Tennessee took my fertility from me,” Breanna Cecil, 34, told The Independent. She added that state lawmakers “took away my opportunity to have a family like my own biological family because of these horrible laws that they put in place.”
The mother-of-one said she has not felt the same since her doctor told her in January 2023 that her fetus was diagnosed with acrania, a fatal condition where the fetus has no skull bones.
Then, 12 weeks pregnant, Ms Cecil was getting her first ultrasound. She attended the appointment alone, so when the doctor told her the fetus was not viable outside the womb, she was left with only asking the doctor what she should do.
However, she was left with few options. The state’s near-total abortion ban prevents anyone from getting an abortion if there is still a heartbeat - which her fetus still had.
The law makes no exceptions for fatal conditions and also criminalizes physicians who perform the procedure outside of the allowed exceptions.
“State lawmakers ‘don’t see the mourning and the grieving that these moms’ experience”
If they did, they wouldn’t care. “It’s God’s will.”
Christofascists don’t care about women. They care about power first & their stupid book full of Bronze Age fairy tales is a distant second, except for the parts they don’t like, of course.
Not so fun fact: They aren’t even paying attention to their book. The Bible mentions abortion exactly once in its pages. Numbers 5: 11-21 tells you how to perform a questionable and dangerous abortion. Their stupid book is technically pro choice on this issue.
Not so much “pro-choice” as much as forced abortion russian-roulette. After all in most of the bible most women have little to no agency.
True, but as the two positions there are (laughably) “pro-life,” or “pro-choice,” I was lumping it in with the latter.
No, if their wife had this issue they’d suddenly care… and consequently be muscled out of the GOP as a non-believer.
One important thing to remember is that the average GOPer is essentially unable to empathize outside of themselves: https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/
But, of course, when it actually reaches them they’re extremely quick to change their tune.
In some cases you’re right. In many others they quietly send them elsewhere and maintain their stance and standing in the GOP community.
For many of them the issue isn’t abortion itself. It’s doing it openly. It’s the same way many of them feel about LGBTQ folks. They feel that those people should be properly ashamed and only do it quietly behind closed doors.
Many of them would also still like to send unmarried pregnant women off to live with a relative for a bit only to come home in 9 months with a “younger sibling”.
Sometimes they try and do that - yea. But they usually fail: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/anti-abortion-rep-tim-murphy-asked-mistress-terminate/story?id=50274843
No true Republican
Both abolitionists and slavers cited the bible to justify their views. IMO they don’t care about the book, its just a tool to enforce their feelings on others. Its a tool many are well versed in but I think its 100% about power and feelings
Ohh, they see it. And it gives them a massive throbbing hard-on.
Fetus’ brain not attached….
Conservatives just trying to protect their own kind.
It had a brain, which is more than most conservatives can say.
I was told they only needed a heatbeat. Brains are just goo.
The only fair outcome is for all of the lawmakers who passed the law to give up one testicle or ovary.
Or their skull bones, because according to the law they passed, those aren’t required for life.
Why not both?
but seriously, let’s make this happen
That’s a far less traumatic experience than what this woman endured.
Strictly CBT congress.
You can bet if this happened to the wife or mistress of one of these fucks, they’d have an abortion right away with no problem.
I know this is preaching to the choir here, but this is so gross across the board.
My wife and I struggled to have our kid. That process is brutal. A lot of women miscarry. A lot of women have unviable pregnancies–like this. An obvious-to-everyone-but-conservatives outcome to banning abortions is that women will lose their ability to have children(like this) or worse they’ll die.
My wife has a very high likelihood of miscarriage. Miscarriages can cause all sorts of issues and sometimes doctors need to go in and clear stuff out (this is considered an abortion). If that doesn’t happen, my wife could 1. Die 2. Lose her ovaries/uterus/fallopian tube 3. Never have a chance at more kids again.
Abortions mean people have have happy healthy families. Abortions mean women can bring children into this world.
We were lucky we didn’t have to go down that path, but it’s a serious risk if we try to have another kid.
People act like women go get abortions for shits and giggles. Fuck anyone voting against women.
Can we post who they voted for in the last election for stories like this? I want to know if I should feel sad and mad or just mad.
Ms. Cecil said that she wanted to make clear to the legislators that “abortion is not black and white,” explaining that every abortion is different. >
Maybe I’m reading into it, but this paragraph stood out to me.
Yea seems like the only moral abortion is my abortion bullshit.
It’s just a weird detail for the author to include. It’s a “while I’ve still got you here…” sentence. It’s entirely unnecessary except to make absolutely sure that everyone knows that she is not speaking in favor of those abortions.
SLAMS!
I’m so tired of that word replacing “strongly criticizes”, “rebukes”, “condemns”, “denounces”, or “repremands”. Why do articles have to use such a stupid, lazy word? Does it actually draw more clicks?
Its shorter, so it fits better in headlines that need to be short.
It’s not like it needs to go into a news paper. It’s a website headline. “condemns” is only three letters longer than “slams” and doesn’t sound lick clickbait.
That one is a newspaper headline though, its from The Independent.
The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition.
A fair point, I hadn’t realized they’d stopped printing physical copies. They still seem to think of themselves as a newspaper though, and I suppose old conventions die hard.
BRUTAL politician TAKEDOWN RKOs opponent out of NOWHERE
Oh my gosh! Oh no! Is anyone alive, JR?!
And welcome to the jam
They wanted so badly to use the word that it fucked up the whole headline
They ‘slammed’ it? Did they also space jam it?
Was that headline written by AI? It’s like someone just had to work the word “slams” in there and it reads like a fetus with no brain stem did the slamming.
It’s just God’s will. /s but sadly, not really.
Jesus taught torture, apparently!
Like Father, like Son!
the people responsible for putting someone through that shit should be put to death
Of course they wouldn’t allow an abortion, that was a future republican.
Doctors need to start standing up.
They are, standing up and leaving those states in droves.
This may be a bad take but since hospitals seem to make bank I think it would be in the country’s best interest if they just “continued to do their work unhindered” and get the hospital in trouble later. Once the government starts asking questions, give them the usual run-around everyone else gets.
I guess Republicans want vigilantism?
That headline is borderline unintelligible.
At what point? Because it’s perfect English and it’s perfect grammar
Yes, of course they would deny the abortion after the fetus SLAMMED the state’s laws.
Technically, that’s not a valid way to read the headline. It’s either the mother, or the fetus’ brain…
As much as I absolutely adore your interpretation there is a comma after that s in fetus rofl
It’s valid English and grammar, but it’s a potentially reasonable position that anything which requires a specific domain knowledge to interpret may be valid but isn’t perfect. You kind of have to know how journalists shorten sentences to make headlines in order to read it correctly; most native English-speaking adults do have that domain knowledge, but clearly not everyone since OP didn’t have it.
That said, I don’t know why this specific headline tripped OP up. It doesn’t seem particularly ambiguous or difficult to me.
“(A) Tennessee woman (who was) denied (an) abortion after (finding out her) fetus’ ‘brain (was) not attached’ slams (Tennessee’s abortion) ban”
Hope that helps.
