Arkansas ban fails to help woman with life-threatening miscarriage

Emily Waldorf, a nurse in intensive care, found herself in a hospital room on the brink of collapse. At 17 weeks pregnant, her cervix had dilated, and the fetus’s head was pressed against it. Medical staff warned her that a miscarriage was “inevitable,” but under Arkansas’ strict abortion ban, doctors could not intervene to prevent infection. The law, which criminalized abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the mother’s life, dictated her care. Waldorf’s husband sat beside her, staring at the vinyl couch, as nurses monitored the fetus’s heartbeat and movements. “Oh look,” one doctor said during an ultrasound, “she’s opening and closing her mouth.” Waldorf wrote in her journal: “My body failed a baby.”

Arkansas’ ban, which the state calls the “most pro-life” in America, had no exceptions for medical emergencies like Waldorf’s. Doctors were legally barred from inducing labor or emptying the uterus, even as infection risk mounted. Her condition mirrored that of Josseli Barnica, a 28-year-old who died in 2021 after Texas doctors delayed treatment. Barnica’s cervix had opened, and her fetus’s head had been pressed against it, but Texas law required waiting until the heartbeat stopped. She died of infection three days after delivery. Waldorf, reading about Barnica’s death in the outlet’s investigation, realized she was not alone in her suffering. “Oh my god, it isn’t just me,” she thought. “But she died.”

Waldorf’s doctors faced a dilemma: follow medical guidelines or break the law. In hospitals worldwide, standard practice for inevitable miscarriages or PPROM is to remove the fetus to prevent infection. But in Arkansas, legal risks overshadowed clinical judgment. “This is basic obstetrics,” said Dr. Alison Goulding, a Texas specialist. “Everyone should know you have to provide an abortion in these settings or women can die.” Texas had amended its law after the outlet’s reporting, allowing doctors to act in life-threatening emergencies without waiting for the heartbeat to stop. Arkansas, however, had not. Its Republican lawmakers repeatedly rejected efforts to expand exceptions, blocking ballot initiatives and tightening restrictions on reform efforts.

Waldorf’s ordeal continued. On her fourth morning in the hospital, she felt a clot the size of a fist pass. Her water had broken, and the fetus’s lungs would never develop enough to survive. But the OB-GYN on duty, Dr. Britte Smith, refused to induce labor, citing the need to consult the hospital’s risk-management team. “Oh,” Waldorf thought, “I’m a liability.” Her doctors, bound by the law, were left to watch as infection risk grew. Across the country, similar cases had revealed a pattern: abortion bans, designed to be punitive, were causing preventable harm. Yet no state coordinated to address the crisis. Waldorf, like Barnica and Thurman before her, was trapped in a system where legal constraints prioritized punishment over survival.