Nancy Davis is a Baton Rouge, Louisiana resident who is 13 weeks pregnant with her second child. Although she and her boyfriend were beyond excited to welcome their new baby into the world, unfortunately things won’t be going as expected. According to local news station WAFB 9, the unborn child is missing vital body parts that will not allow it to survive.
Three weeks ago, Davis went to a prenatal doctor’s appointment at Woman’s Hospital for her first ultrasound at 10 weeks. “It was an abnormal ultrasound, and they noticed the top of the baby’s head was missing and the skull was missing, the top of the skull was missing,” she said. The unborn child was diagnosed with a rare and fatal condition called acrania. Babies with this condition live for only a few minutes outside their mother’s womb.
To add to her grief, because the child’s condition causes no risk or danger to Davis’ life, she was denied an abortion according to the Louisiana Department of Health’s list of qualifying conditions. As news of her heartbreaking story spreads, users on social media are calling out the state’s abortion laws. “Forcing a woman in Louisiana to carry a fetus that is missing its skull and some of its head to term is barbaric and anything but ‘pro-life,’” one person tweeted. Another user responded by saying, “Can you imagine the trauma? This is cruel [and] unusual punishment for being pregnant.”
Davis now has two options: Go through with the pregnancy and carry the baby to full-term, or travel to the nearest state that still allows abortions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June ruling. “Florida is the closest … so ideally Florida. But then the next closest place would be North Carolina or something,” Davis told the outlet. The mother added that she hopes politicians will consider special cases like hers when making laws that severely affect women’s lives. As Davis is currently 13 weeks pregnant, she must make a tough decision before the 15-week abortion cutoff.