State lawmakers ‘don’t see the mourning and the grieving that these moms’ experience after getting a heartbreaking diagnosis, Breanna Cecil tells Kelly Rissman

A Tennessee woman who was denied an abortion despite a fatal abnormality says the state’s anti-abortion laws resulted in her losing an ovary, a fallopian tube and her hopes for a large family.

“The state of Tennessee took my fertility from me,” Breanna Cecil, 34, told The Independent. She added that state lawmakers “took away my opportunity to have a family like my own biological family because of these horrible laws that they put in place.”

The mother-of-one said she has not felt the same since her doctor told her in January 2023 that her fetus was diagnosed with acrania, a fatal condition where the fetus has no skull bones.

Then, 12 weeks pregnant, Ms Cecil was getting her first ultrasound. She attended the appointment alone, so when the doctor told her the fetus was not viable outside the womb, she was left with only asking the doctor what she should do.

However, she was left with few options. The state’s near-total abortion ban prevents anyone from getting an abortion if there is still a heartbeat - which her fetus still had.

The law makes no exceptions for fatal conditions and also criminalizes physicians who perform the procedure outside of the allowed exceptions.

  • S_204@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    She’s going to be charged for murdering the baby when it’s born not alive isn’t she?

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      She discovered the nonviability of the fetus in January 2023, and had an abortion in February.

      The loss of her tube and ovary sounds like the abortion was not performed correctly.

      • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Possibly it was due to the operation but the remedy was clear and she still had to wait. The longer the wait the greater the risk and the outcome likely would’ve been better if this was handled immediately. The point is that the law ignores medical best practices in the name of “saving lives” which, in a case like this, is no less than a form of torture for the hopeful parents.

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Yes, absolutely. I didn’t mean to imply that the state of TN had no culpability in denying the medical care this woman needed. The story makes it sound like her health problems happened because her abortion was performed incorrectly, and while that is always a risk, had she not had to wait a month to get it her outcome might have been significantly better.

          In any case, this is why women deserve the right to make decisions about their health and their body, independent of Conservative input.

          • reddit_sux@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            The risk of infection rises as longer the dead tissue stays inside. The dead tissue being the retained pregnancy material.

            Dilation and curettage is a blind procedure in which the the pregnancy is removed by suction. Most of the times some aprt does stay behind. Those are usually shed during menstruation.

            Why not complete removal done?

            Because a more vigorous curettage might cause uterus to rupture. So the doctors rely on bodies capacity to heal itself.

  • Djtecha@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    Can we post who they voted for in the last election for stories like this? I want to know if I should feel sad and mad or just mad.

    • ettyblatant@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Ms. Cecil said that she wanted to make clear to the legislators that “abortion is not black and white,” explaining that every abortion is different. >

      Maybe I’m reading into it, but this paragraph stood out to me.

        • ettyblatant@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          It’s just a weird detail for the author to include. It’s a “while I’ve still got you here…” sentence. It’s entirely unnecessary except to make absolutely sure that everyone knows that she is not speaking in favor of those abortions.

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      “(A) Tennessee woman (who was) denied (an) abortion after (finding out her) fetus’ ‘brain (was) not attached’ slams (Tennessee’s abortion) ban”

      Hope that helps.

        • forrgott@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          Technically, that’s not a valid way to read the headline. It’s either the mother, or the fetus’ brain…

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        It’s valid English and grammar, but it’s a potentially reasonable position that anything which requires a specific domain knowledge to interpret may be valid but isn’t perfect. You kind of have to know how journalists shorten sentences to make headlines in order to read it correctly; most native English-speaking adults do have that domain knowledge, but clearly not everyone since OP didn’t have it.

        That said, I don’t know why this specific headline tripped OP up. It doesn’t seem particularly ambiguous or difficult to me.

  • snooggums@midwest.social
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    6 months ago

    The only fair outcome is for all of the lawmakers who passed the law to give up one testicle or ovary.

  • Jaysyn@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    “State lawmakers ‘don’t see the mourning and the grieving that these moms’ experience”

    If they did, they wouldn’t care. “It’s God’s will.”

    Christofascists don’t care about women. They care about power first & their stupid book full of Bronze Age fairy tales is a distant second, except for the parts they don’t like, of course.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Not so fun fact: They aren’t even paying attention to their book. The Bible mentions abortion exactly once in its pages. Numbers 5: 11-21 tells you how to perform a questionable and dangerous abortion. Their stupid book is technically pro choice on this issue.

      • whereisk@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Not so much “pro-choice” as much as forced abortion russian-roulette. After all in most of the bible most women have little to no agency.

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Both abolitionists and slavers cited the bible to justify their views. IMO they don’t care about the book, its just a tool to enforce their feelings on others. Its a tool many are well versed in but I think its 100% about power and feelings

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    6 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    A Tennessee woman who was denied an abortion despite a fatal abnormality says the state’s anti-abortion laws resulted in her losing an ovary, a fallopian tube and her hopes for a large family.

    Not only could she not “mentally handle” the well-intentioned questions about the baby’s due date and sex, she said she could not be a “good mom to [her] little boy” if she was forced to go through with her pregnancy, and deliver the stillborn.

    Her fever persisted and two days later, she returned to the hospital, where doctors discovered she had a nine-centimeter-sized abscess in her abdomen that encompassed some of her reproductive organs.

    The young mother added pregnant people who need an abortion shouldn’t feel like they need to beg for permission from lawmakers who do not have medical backgrounds.

    Ms Cecil contemplated joining a group of women, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, who were denied abortions and are now fighting the state’s prohibition, asking for “clarity” on the ban’s medical exceptions.

    The three-judge panel has yet to rule on the temporary injunction in a state that is one of 14 across the nation that made abortion illegal since the end of Roe v Wade in June 2022.


    The original article contains 1,080 words, the summary contains 204 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • vortic@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I’m so tired of that word replacing “strongly criticizes”, “rebukes”, “condemns”, “denounces”, or “repremands”. Why do articles have to use such a stupid, lazy word? Does it actually draw more clicks?

        • vortic@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          It’s not like it needs to go into a news paper. It’s a website headline. “condemns” is only three letters longer than “slams” and doesn’t sound lick clickbait.

              • notabot@lemm.ee
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                6 months ago

                A fair point, I hadn’t realized they’d stopped printing physical copies. They still seem to think of themselves as a newspaper though, and I suppose old conventions die hard.

  • reddig33@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Was that headline written by AI? It’s like someone just had to work the word “slams” in there and it reads like a fetus with no brain stem did the slamming.

  • Mastengwe@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    Fetus’ brain not attached….

    Conservatives just trying to protect their own kind.

    • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      This may be a bad take but since hospitals seem to make bank I think it would be in the country’s best interest if they just “continued to do their work unhindered” and get the hospital in trouble later. Once the government starts asking questions, give them the usual run-around everyone else gets.