Around two months into Avery Davis Bell’s pregnancy with her second son last year, she started bleeding.
“We remained optimistic,” she said.
But over the coming weeks, Bell’s bleeding worsened. Eventually, doctors gave her an iron infusion and ordered bed rest. But her condition continued to deteriorate.
Then, at around 18 weeks pregnant, Bell said she felt a sharp pain.
“And I passed a clot the size of a dinner plate. My husband and I scooped the terrifying clot into a container and rushed back to the hospital with it,” she said. “We learned that my baby was showing signs of distress.”
Her water had broken. The baby would not make it, doctors told her. She was at high risk for a sepsis infection and would need to undergo a routine procedure to remove the fetal tissue.
But under Georgia’s abortion law H.B. 481, they had to wait until Bell’s health declined even more.
“Even with a doomed, non-viable pregnancy and at risk of death, I needed to be actively dying to receive a life-saving abortion. But determining when exactly I was dying,” she said, “that’s not black and white.”
She waited overnight as doctors and nurses closely monitored her vital signs.
“Why did I have to be put at risk of leaving our three-year-old motherless? The lawmakers and politicians behind Georgia’s abortion ban imperiled my life and my family.”
Avery Davis Bell
The next day, after another round of tests, her team rushed back into her hospital room.
They said she needed an urgent blood transfusion. And her test results showed doctors could legally perform the abortion procedure.
“It was surreal and twisted to feel relief that my health was obviously measurably failing,” Bell said.
Bell was one of two Georgians who spoke against Georgia’s abortion restrictions Monday at the latest in a series of Atlanta forums organized by Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.
If he had survived, her son was due to be born last Friday.
“I continue to struggle with the pain of his loss, but also the pain and the dishonor of me and my expected child that the state of Georgia put us through,” Bell said. “Why did I have to be put at risk of leaving our three-year-old motherless? The lawmakers and politicians behind Georgia’s abortion ban imperiled my life and my family.”
Proponents of H.B. 481 maintain that the abortion law is not intended to prevent access to maternal health care.
The law bans abortion at roughly six weeks of pregnancy, when cardiac activity can be detected by an ultrasound exam.
The law outlines some exceptions, including to treat ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage and stillbirth, and for pregnancies a doctor deems “medically futile.”
“Medically futile” means that, in reasonable medical judgment, an unborn child has a profound and irremediable congenital or chromosomal anomaly that is incompatible with sustaining life after birth,” the law reads.
But Atlanta Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist Dr. Suchitra Chandrasekaran said the language of the law is unclear and doesn’t correspond to the real-world practice of medicine.
“The exceptions for ‘medical emergencies’ and ‘medically futile’ pregnancies are limiting and unworkable legal concepts when put into practice. You cannot define a medical emergency until it unfolds.” Chandrasekaran, whose practice focuses on high-risk pregnancy and delivery, said. “For every health condition you can dream up for a list, there are countless more that could happen. No law can fully account for all aspects and complications of a pregnancy.”
She said when an abortion procedure is needed to treat severe pregnancy complications, any delays in care can further compound the patient’s health risks.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t share how frustrating it is to watch patients travel for care that my colleagues and I are fully capable of providing. High-risk pregnancies are already unexpected, life-threatening, emotionally traumatizing and life-changing for all involved,” Chandrasekaran said. “Forcing patients to leave the state for care that can and should be provided here only exacerbates burdens on the patients and their families.”
Georgia’s abortion restrictions have been linked to at least two deaths that the state’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee determined could have been prevented, cases first reported by investigative news outlet ProPublica last year.
And anti-abortion-rights advocates in Georgia want state lawmakers and the Trump administration to further restrict abortion access.
For his part, Ossoff urged state lawmakers to take action to prevent more Georgians from dying during and after pregnancy.
“My office will continue to investigate Georgia’s maternal health crisis,” he said, “including the impacts of Georgia’s abortion ban, the availability and quality of health care, and our state’s shockingly high maternal mortality rate.”
