Thev fetus Michelle was carrying was dead. At her 14-week checkup, the doctor had detected only low cardiac activity. Now, two weeks later, the physician confirmed it: The fetus likely had been dead for most or all of the intervening time. The 35-year-old Missouri woman, who asked that her real name not be used, vividly remembers what her doctor said next.
“If there’s one thing I want you to go away understanding, it’s that you are in mortal danger,” she told Michelle.
Because she had been carrying a dead fetus for so long, Michelle was at risk of developing sepsis or an infection. “Either could be fatal. I needed to make a choice quickly,” she recalled. Her two options were to receive what’s called a D&E—a dilation and evacuation, the procedure also used for second-trimester abortions—or to be induced and go through labor.
“I said immediately, ‘Well that’s easy, of course I want the D&E. Why would I want to go through labor for a dead fetus?’” Michelle said. “That’s awful.”
But Michelle’s OB-GYN worked at a hospital that didn’t provide D&Es. “It’s perceived as an abortion by the community,” a nurse explained.
The closest doctor who could perform the procedure was an hour and a half away in Kansas, and he didn’t feel comfortable treating her right before he left for a vacation. When she called around, and other doctors said they couldn’t do the D&E either, she asked why. They told her no one in the rural area was properly trained in abortion techniques, including the technique she needed for her miscarriage.
Michelle had no choice but to be induced. She went through 21 hours of labor that traumatized both her and her husband.