She Faced a Life-Threatening Miscarriage. Under Arkansas' Abortion Ban, Even Calls to the Governor's Office Didn't Help.

[In It to Win It]

https://www.propublica.org/article/arkansas-abortion-ban-miscarriage-care

On the morning of Sept. 16, 2024, Emily Waldorf’s preschooler found her curled on the bathroom floor. Waldorf had felt a strange pressure during a shower, like a balloon bulging into her vagina, and was now bleeding. “I can be your pillow, mommy,” her daughter said, nuzzling into her neck.

Waldorf was 17 weeks pregnant. She and her husband, Justin, dropped their daughter off at her grandparents’ and rushed to Washington Regional Hospital in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where Waldorf worked as an acute care physical therapist.

In a dark room, a doctor pointed to an hourglass shape glowing on the ultrasound screen: There was her amniotic sac, funneling into her dilated cervix, and there was their tiny daughter’s foot, dipping out.

“Your body is about to miscarry,” the doctor said.

Three doctors gathered and told the couple that the longer Waldorf’s cervix remained open and her uterus exposed to bacteria, the higher her risk of developing a life-threatening infection. The standard of care, they explained, would be to quickly empty her womb.

need to spoil the kicker on this Kavitha Surana story, because it's that good.

"Each run-in brings it all pouring back. The ultrasounds. The “risk management.” The blood, so much blood.

But also, the state line. The relief she felt crossing it."

www.propublica.org/article/arka...

— Nicole Foy (@nicolefoy.bsky.social) 2026-05-26T15:27:04.836Z

[not fooled]

1. Glad it turned out OK for her

but she never bothered to inform herself about the consequences of the abortion ban, until she needed medical help that it blocked.

I think a lot of these people subconsciously shy away from educating themselves about GQPee policies, because they don't want to know and hope they can escape the consequences.

[Stargazer99]

2. Setting up laws that might kill women sounds like murder to me-how do Republican women rationalize this?

or can they critically think at all? Is it a lack of intelligence? Or they just use emotions only?

[ProudMNDemocrat]

4. Women who vote Republican are worse than MONSTERS.

They simply DO NOT CARE or are TOO AFRAID to vote for their better economic and social interests. Which Bodily autonomy is one of those social interests. They continue to make it a habit to vote for Republicans hell bent on keeping them down, taking away their rights, making everyone else suffer.

Many Republican women are rooted deep into Southern Christian propaganda. Sex and sexuality are taboo topics of discussion, let alone seeking information about. Knowledge and education are also not an option. Am I being stereotypical? Perhaps! It shows in how they vote.

[dlk]

3. There are too many women-haters in policy making positions

And women suffer and die as a result.

America has a misogyny problem.

[Ilsa]

5. Alot of RW men don't want to know about women's "icky stuff"

from "down there." Many are afraid of blood especially women's blood. Many husbands and partners are fine with their ignorance of the dangerous stuff about pregnancy and childbirth.

[erronis]

6. Too many men really don't want to be involved after the sex act. They've done their tiny bit

and leave it up to the women to clean up - as usual.

[GenThePerservering]

7. Heck - they faint when they get a simple blood draw

I've heard some funny stories about these alpha male types passing out in the lab lol.

[Ilsa]

9. Seriously, I think some of them would rather

take a small caliber bullet than a blood draw.

[rickford66]

8. "she finally understood" - what any intelligent woman better know or should have known.

"As she lay in a hospital bed, worried that infection could enter her uterus at any moment, she finally understood the ban now applied to anyone losing a baby.""