menu_open Columnists
We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Causing a preventable horror

22 0
09.08.2026

I am still reeling from a conversation I had last week. It was one of those that stays with you, shifts your perspective, changes you. I have had others like it on the podcast. I suppose it is the cumulative effect of these stories that feels like a weight too heavy to bear. And yet the burden I feel is nothing compared to the women these stories belong to. We must bear the burden if we are ever to right our wrongs, to turn our hearts toward trying in some small way to redeem the suffering our state has inflicted on our innocent women and their families.

Danielle Williamson and her husband moved here from another state when he landed his dream job at Arkansas Children's Hospital. They bought a house in Pulaski Heights in Little Rock and settled in, ready to start a family and build their lives. After trying to get pregnant with no luck, they decided to try IVF. Because there were no options for that in Arkansas, they chose a clinic in Dallas and started the expensive, grueling process.

The couple was thrilled to announce their joy to their families when Danielle conceived. She did everything "right" as she prepared for their precious baby: fastidiously following her doctor's orders, nesting, sharing every new and exciting detail with her pediatrician husband as the pregnancy progressed. All their prenatal appointments showed the baby was perfectly healthy. After all they had gone through longing and trying for a baby, for five blissful months it seemed their dream was coming true.

But everything changed in an instant at Danielle's five-month appointment, when the doctor found a serious abnormality on ultrasound.

Danielle said she could see on the faces of their trusted health-care providers that something was wrong. They called in others to check........

© Arkansas Online