Fatal abnormalities are a harsh reality of pregnancy. Why does Oklahoma abortion law ignore it?

It’s past time that Oklahoma lawmakers acknowledged a harsh reality about pregnancy.

As a mother of two children, let me tell you, there is no one-size fits all pregnancy. Just like the children that are born of them, each pregnancy is different. And while one may be completely free of complications, the next may not.

That’s why it’s so appalling that Oklahoma’s Legislature continues to treat pregnancy and related abortion policies as a black-and-white issue with no room for deviation. That’s despite the reality that anyone who has ever carried a child knows  maternal medicine is nuanced.

But that ignorance explains why Oklahoma taxpayers will again waste public money defending our Legislature’s callous version of how pregnancy should happen versus the unvarnished, uncomfortable reality.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion three years ago, the procedure has been banned in Oklahoma except to save the life of the mother. But what qualifies as life-threatening remains vague, open to interpretation.

Oklahoma law strangely does not permit women to terminate nonviable pregnancies or end those in cases where prenatal testing determines a fetus or unborn child has a fatal diagnosis.

So now we’re all forced to face the horrific circumstances surrounding the very wanted pregnancies of two Oklahoma mothers — Magon Hoffman and Sheena Hamlin.

Hamlin said her routine 21-week anatomy scan flagged concerns. A follow-up screening determined her unborn child, who she had already named Ellie, had a series of conditions that were “not compatible with life,” according to a lawsuit she filed against state leaders.

Her child suffered from “sac-like protrusion of the brain through an opening at the back of the skull,” kidney cysts and scar tissue in the liver.

The maternal specialist said Ellie would likely die before birth, but if Hamlin did carry to term and gave birth, the child’s lungs would be so undeveloped that she would “suffocate as soon as the umbilical cord was cut.”

Faced with an unimaginable choice of aborting a pregnancy or dooming their newborn to death by suffocation, Hamlin and her husband chose mercy for Ellie and decided to end the pregnancy. 

The problem was they couldn’t do it in Oklahoma because of the state’s strict abortion ban. They had to spend $4,000 out of pocket to travel to Illinois for medical care.

At 19 weeks, Hoffman’s baby was diagnosed with anencephaly, a birth defect where a child is missing parts of their brain or skull. In Hoffman’s case, her child had a “tiny bit of brain floating around,” but no skull. As a result, the child had “no chance of survival,” according to the lawsuit.

If Hoffman chose to carry her pregnancy to term, the child’s life expectancy would be short. The specialist told Hoffman that her child might live a few hours or days, but would be “blind and dying.”

Hoffman and her husband were forced to travel eight hours to New Mexico and pay $3,000 out of pocket because her insurance would not cover an abortion in another state. She also lost her job due to the time she had to take off to have the procedure.

The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit on both mothers’ behalf along with two Oklahoma practicing OB-GYNs. They’re suing the state’s attorney general, Oklahoma County’s district attorney, and other state medical leaders on the grounds that the existing ban violates pregnant women’s right to “life and liberty,” along with their guaranteed rights to due process and equal protection.

In short, they want Oklahoma’s courts to determine that abortion law also applies to pregnancies with fatal fetal diagnoses.

How torturous to spend as long as 10 months carrying a child to term, only to then be forced by an unsympathetic state Legislature to watch him or her die immediately.

The Pregnancy Loss Research Group reports that about 2% of pregnancies involve a “congenital anomaly.” 

While a smaller proportion of those anomalies are fatal, those congenital defects are the leading cause of fetal or child death, the group said.

When Oklahoma lawmakers defend our state’s abortion laws, they don’t like to acknowledge that fact. They like to talk boldly about the healthy, viable pregnancies that are ended. They also cite nebulous examples of pregnancies that are aborted after a child is diagnosed with a survivable, genetic condition such as Down Syndrome.

Those arguments have long been an easy sell in a state like Oklahoma that purports to value life.

But these are not those.

Oklahoma lawmakers also don’t like to acknowledge the questionable morality and ethics of forcing women to birth babies that trained medical experts know will die quickly.

Living in ignorance may have felt like a more comfortable choice for our male-dominated Legislature when they clawed back healthcare for women years ago. 

But that created new and costly problems. We can’t afford to live like that any more.

When lawmakers convene in February, they will confront these long-delayed and tough conversations.

They are spelled out for them in this court filing.

And, if the anti-abortion movement isn’t careful, it could face some setbacks. If it digs in and defends the notion of forcing women to birth babies that have fatal abnormalities as a casualty of a broader fight, the movement will lose credibility and public support.

Because regardless of how Oklahomans feel about abortion overall, most do not intend for their loved ones to be cruelly harmed by elected officials who claim life is sacred.