K Monica Kelly had to travel to Florida for an abortion after her fetus was diagnosed with trisomy 13 – now she’s part of a group suing her state
When K Monica Kelly saw that women in Texas had filed a lawsuit challenging the contours of their state’s abortion ban, she posted on Instagram to cheer them on.
“I shared how terrible I thought it was, that they weren’t able to get the proper healthcare they needed in their state,” Kelly said. “It never crossed my mind that that was actually going to happen to me soon.”
Kelly and her husband spent a year trying to have a second baby. So when they discovered in February 2023 that Kelly was pregnant, the couple was ecstatic. They taught their son, who was then two years old, to describe their family as: “Mama, dada, me, baby, all four!” After an ultrasound looked promising, and they drove more than 10 hours from their home in northern Tennessee to announce the news to their family in Florida.
Only days later, after they’d returned home, in late March, the pair drove back to Florida. This time, though, the drive was “surreal and devastating”, Kelly said. A series of catastrophic fetal diagnoses had led Kelly to decide to get an abortion – a procedure she could not legally get in Tennessee.
Under Obama, and no, that’s not their only path.
At no time under Obama did Democrats have 60 seats in the senate. They had 57 seats and 2 independents who caucused with them.
This is not enough seats to overcome a filibuster which would be required to legalize abortion in all the states. They would have required 1 Republican to vote with the Democrats on this topic and I think even in the kinder political times that Republican would have been strung up on a light pole when they returned back to their home district.