The story of Kate Cox having to leave Texas to end a nonviable pregnancy that threatened her chance of having more children may be processed by some people as a rare, even unique, occurrence. But I can attest, both as a former expectant dad and as a Texan, that it’s not a rarity.
When my then-wife and I found ourselves in a similar situation, I began questioning my assumptions about the role government should play in such decisions. It was more than 25 years ago. My wife, Nikki, was pregnant, and we were excited about the expected arrival of a new son we’d name John. We had begun to make plans and decorate his room. Hope filled our hearts in anticipation of this new life in our lives. After six months of being exceedingly careful and making regular visits to the doctor, we drove from our house in Texas to her doctor’s office to see the baby’s progress on the ultrasound.
We both noticed something in the doctor’s eyes that worried us, and we knew something must have been wrong when he called in another doctor to look at the ultrasound with him. We knew the news wasn’t going to be good. This is what they told us: John had developed a tumor that was growing dramatically. He could not survive. He’d likely die before Nikki’s due date.
In one instant, our hope and happiness suddenly turned to anguish, fear and then anger. But worse news was yet to come.
The doctors explained that because of Texas’ restrictive abortion law, we had three options:
1) We could take the chance on an experimental surgery being done in California on babies in utero. The chances of success were tiny, and the chances of Nikki being harmed were great, as doctors realized that the sickness she’d been experiencing wasn’t morning sickness but a sign that she’d begun mirroring John’s illness.
2) We could fly to Kansas to end the pregnancy. The doctors recommended that if we chose this route, we should do so using a false name. The issue of abortion in Texas was too politically charged, they said, for us not to disguise who we were.
3) We could carry the baby until it died, the result of which would be a stillborn child.
What an awful menu of options to present to a young couple who had to process all this in a moment’s time. We never shared this story outside a small group of our family and friends, but Nikki gave me permission to share this story in the hopes that it may help others.
Cox found out that the baby she carried had trisomy 18,