Democrat-Gazette online

As an evangelical Christian, I grew up thinking abortion was murder. When I heard pro-choice language like "reproductive health care" I thought it was just that: pro-choice language. The language of a political movement. The language people used when they wanted to reframe the narrative surrounding abortion away from the horror of killing babies and toward the idea that it was normal; a choice women deserved. Back then, I saw it as a lie.

When, as a teenager, I was trained as a volunteer in my church's pregnancy crisis center, the idea was to talk people into giving up their babies for adoption rather than seeking an abortion. By providing the support they needed to be able to do that, we'd be saving lives. The assumption was that women who came to us would be in the midst of an unwanted pregnancy, considering abortion as a form of birth control because they didn't use protection.

I don't remember a discussion of rape or incest, and certainly not of any need for abortion as health care in case a mother's life was at risk. Perhaps that was because Roe v. Wade was in place as the law of the land, or perhaps those cases were out of our wheelhouse. What it amounted to as part of my education was that I only thought about abortion happening to women who were likely unwed and inefficient at planning not to have a baby. We were there to help them not make the even worse mistake of becoming murderers.

Today I lean pro-choice. This sea change is the result of years of slow evolution out of a fundamentalist worldview and into a place that recognizes you can be a Christian and pro-choice. And even as I respect those who maintain a pro-life stance because of their beliefs, I require that same respect because of mine, and respect those who disagree for reasons that are not religious. We are not under a Christian theocracy any more than Sharia law in this country.

My more nuanced approach to faith leads me to believe Roe v. Wade was a good way to handle the issue of abortion in America. Before it was overturned, states could protect babies who were viable outside the womb as well as the rights of women to reproductive health care, but they could not deny women life-saving care they needed. In Arkansas, ironically the "most pro-life state in the nation," that is no longer the case. I realized this when my daughter and daughter-in-law theorized about needing such care upon application of our trigger law when Roe v. Wade was overturned. Now I know someone for whom their fears became reality.

Dr. Emily Waldorf, like me, grew up Southern Baptist in Arkansas. She graduated from Ouachita Baptist University and got her doctorate in physical therapy from the University of Southern California, where she met her husband. They moved back to her home state to be close to her parents and sister and raise a family of their own. The Waldorfs already had one daughter, age 4, when Emily happily became pregnant with another baby. Ultrasound revealed it was a girl, and the family was excited about the new little sister.

Everything went well until 17 weeks, when Emily began bleeding. Her husband drove her to the ER at Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville. An examination confirmed serious complications. Emily and her husband were told they would lose their baby; it was only a matter of time. She was admitted. As they grieved the loss of their much wanted child, they waited to miscarry. When it didn't happen, Emily thought she would be induced, because her risks of infection were increasing, even with no hope for her baby's survival. She was told that because of Arkansas law they could not do anything for her until the baby's heart stopped or she reached a white-cell blood count that indicated she was near enough to death that they could intervene.

Every day Emily endured the two-fold trauma of ultrasounds to determine if her baby's heart had stopped beating and having her blood drawn to assess whether she was septic enough to induce labor. When Emily's sister called Gov. Sarah Sanders' office to plead with her fellow OBU alumnus, a man answered. He asked her, "What do you expect the governor to do?" And suggested she get a lawyer.

On day five, her family was finally able to get ahold of a lawmaker in another state who referred her to an attorney from a national group who helps women in such dire circumstances. She was transported 240 miles to a Kansas hospital where she was immediately induced. As she received life-saving care, Emily was able to begin the healing process--physically and emotionally--by holding and mourning her baby, naming her Bee before letting her go.

Emily, a health-care professional, did not realize the care she needed during a miscarriage was considered an abortion under current Arkansas law. In her mind, as I would imagine with most of us, it was simply logical, decent, humane health care. "I never would have asked for an abortion," she told me. "I desperately wanted my baby." But the law is intentionally vague. Emily and three other mothers, as well as a physician, are suing the state of Arkansas and Governor Sanders, and asking for our abortion bans to be struck down.

Emily told me that from the ambulance, as she saw the sign that they were crossing the state line into Kansas, a state where she could get the health care she needed, she thought to herself, "Thank God, I am going to live." Hearing this absolutely killed me as an Arkansan. It is shameful to imagine our people have to leave our home state under these circumstances, and I cannot believe it is what a majority of our people want. How many of us even know it is happening? How many women can't get out? How many die and can't tell us what happened?

You can hear this brave Arkansan tell her story, and learn more about the reality facing anyone who becomes pregnant in Arkansas under this law, as I learned so much in our conversation on the vodcast. The episode drops at noon today.

Gwen Ford Faulkenberry is an author, teacher and award-winning columnist from Ozark. She is a litigant in a case against LEARNS. Watch her vodcast here: https://small-town-girl.castos.com. Email her at gfaulkenberry@hotmail.com.

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