We have no choice but to fight back.

Trigger warning for pregnancy loss and miscarriage, but think it needs to be said:

The past two days, I’ve been wondering, if a nationwide abortion ban comes, whether I will have to fly to Canada to get the reproductive healthcare I need, if and when we try again for pregnancy, and if I miscarry again.

A nationwide abortion ban can now happen in (at least) two ways: 1. the FDA authorization of the medicines required for abortion and late-term miscarriages is revoked, and 2. The 1873 Comstock Act is enforced by SCOTUS to not allow mailing of abortion materials. If those happen, NY, California, and all the places that have enshrined abortion rights will no longer have those rights. This is all outlined in Project 2025. Trump has the Senate now, may have the House, and has this power; SCOTUS is conservative, and Trump has the power to appoint two younger SCOTUS members if Alito and Thomas resign, which the nation would live with for decades to come.

This is no longer theoretical.

My miscarriage started six months ago Tuesday in Montreal. My husband and I sat in the emergency room as I leaked out the rest of my amniotic fluid at 17 weeks. Though our baby had a heartbeat, the doctors all agreed that there was no viable chance for survival. I was also developing an infection. The doctors recommended I be induced for labor or have surgery. Against doctors’ orders, we flew back to NY the following day to deliver my baby here. The care I needed so I wouldn’t die required the medicines now possibly on the chopping block, and the tools for D&C to remove my placenta that may no longer be mailed to the hospital. Without this care, I could have died like Josseli Barnica did in 2021 in Texas. She was also 17 weeks pregnant as she miscarried and as her baby still had a heartbeat like mine. Her doctors refused to treat her for 40 hours because of the abortion laws there.

I know now Montreal and Canada would have provided the care I needed had I stayed there. It is no longer a guarantee that we’ll have that level of care in NY or anywhere in the US soon. And as I PPROMed once already, there is a higher likelihood now that, in a future pregnancy, this can happen again. This is not me catastrophizing: this is real.

So, for those saying Trump is like the rest, no, he’s not. A lot of people are going to suffer needlessly because of this election. And I am only talking about one issue. I am scared, I am nervous, yet I am oddly calm, because I now know what’s coming. We have no choice but to fight back. A lot of work is to come.