The Texas Legislature has done a number of despicable things under the direction of Greg Abbott, but this is their current atrocity.

I’d like to give a little background on myself: I miscarried a planned pregnancy in December, 2008. Before losing the pregnancy I spent 10.5 weeks throwing up around the clock. I spent 10.5 weeks in misery, even pulling a muscle while violently vomiting uncontrollably. I had a terrible hospital stay and wound up poking myself multiple times a day to try and control the hyperemesis gravidarum. It didn’t work. I lost weight. My throat was raw. I had a perpetual headache. I couldn’t keep down food or even water. I felt it would be worth it in the end because in another 30 weeks or so I would have my baby.

While in the hospital at 7 weeks, 4 days for dehydration and all that comes with HG,  I saw the heartbeat. I was happy and hopeful. Having a high-risk pregnancy due to the HG and epilepsy meant at 10.5 weeks I had another ultrasound. I was looking forward to seeing how much bigger this little creature I was becoming to attached to was. This time my doctor looked concerned. She kept checking the measurements. I didn’t see a heartbeat this time. She pulled my records from my last ultrasound to check the measurements from the previous ultrasound.

I knew before she said anything. She broke the news to me as gently as the could. There was no change in size. The fetus had not developed since my last ultrasound. The heart had stopped beating. The pregnancy was not viable. My husband was there with me. Our hearts were both broken.

I was so confused. Why was I still so sick? What happened? Did I do something wrong? Was it my fault?

It was clear that I was not going to miscarry naturally. A D&C was scheduled for my doctor’s next surgery day, which was two days later. I spent that time researching everything I could about miscarriages. The psychological trauma of a difficult pregnancy followed by the trauma of losing a much wanted pregnancy was more than I can get into now. It still haunts me despite having two successful (though difficult) pregnancies and loving my two boys more than I thought possible.

At the surgery center I had to fill out paperwork. On the paper was information about the procedure.

Reason for the D&C: missed miscarriage

Procedure: abortion

I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

I turned to the Internet and a group of pregnant women who were due at the same time I would have been. Most were supportive, but one woman sent me a message telling me that if I had just turned to prayer things would have been different and I could have “saved the baby.” I was horrified at first, then I was confused about why she would have said that to me. Plus, wouldn’t that be resurrection?

Like that horrible woman, Greg Abbott and his cronies in the Texas Legislature are trying to punish women. They want to prolong their agony. They want to make a terrible situation much worse.

How can we stand for this? How do we let them get away with this? What can we do?

Vote. Vote these jerks out of office. I don’t have the names of the scum who are in favor of this, but I most certainly will as soon as my tears have dried and I can think straight again.

Pro-choice and Pro-life Texans need to make it clear that requiring the burial or cremation of fetuses is not acceptable. We need to send a message that we will not tolerate extending the misery of anyone who has a pregnancy ended either by choice or by miscarriage. Common decency says you should not rub salt into someone’s wound. How is it that they have forgotten the Golden Rule, or do they just think it doesn’t apply to them?