Woman forced to give birth to stillborn in Texas because of 'Women's Health Laws'

Attribution: AFP/Getty Images

The good and the bad, it's all a miracle

Mar 31, 2016 2:26pm PDT by Walter Einenkel, Daily Kos Staff

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There are real victims in the laws created by men to police the morality of a woman’s body. Daniel Mahaffey wrote on an Austin, Texas Reddit thread about his wife Taylor’s pregnancy nightmare—a nightmare exacerbated in no small way by Texas’s HB2 abortion laws. His wife was 20 weeks pregnant in a seemingly smooth pregnancy when a serious complication arose—her cervix began prematurely dilating. Emergency measures at the hospital were taken but to no avail. There was nothing that could be done to save the 20-week-old fetus.

The only humane thing to do at that point would be to pop the sack, and let little Fox come into this world too early to survive outside.

However, thanks to Texas' frankly inhumane and cruel "Women's Health Laws", this wasn't an option.

He still had a heart beat, which we were forced to listen to.

Because of this, and his age, any attempts to induce labor would be considered a late-term abortion.

Even though he had no chance of surviving, this was considered an abortion.

Daniel Mahaffey spoke about being forced to allow the labor to progress—at home.

The Mahaffeys were sent home to wait for their baby to die or for Taylor’s labor to progress. “We cried ourselves to sleep, waiting for him to come,” Daniel said in an interview with The Daily Beast.

They prayed conflicting prayers: for a miracle that might save him and for an end to their baby’s suffering. Daniel worried his wife would hemorrhage while Taylor could feel the baby struggling inside of her, Daniel said.

Daniel wrote this about the laws in Texas concerning women’s reproductive rights:

They are hopelessly inadequate for dealing with the complexities of human reproduction.

Me and my wife are home now. Grieving for our loss. We'll get through this. My heart breaks, however, for the hundreds, if not thousands of others that will be effected by these godless laws.

If you believe it is God’s plan to give humanity science and technology and then to legislate a way to force women and families to suffer needlessly, then your God is a piece of shit.

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