When the news broke that the U.S. Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, I was sitting in a nursery rocking chair, holding my newborn son.
My first thought as the news alert popped up on my phone: there was a good chance this tiny baby in my arms wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t had access to abortion care.
My second thought: women across the country would soon find themselves facing the same tragic circumstances I faced nearly four years earlier but now they would no longer have the same choices available to them.
Many people view abortion rights as being safe in Colorado. But if we’ve learned anything from the Dobbs decision, it’s that abortion rights can be taken away with the stroke of a pen. Some Colorado lawmakers have already tried. This fall, voters in our state have the opportunity to enshrine the right to abortion care in our state’s constitution by voting “yes” on Amendment 79. A “yes” vote would ensure that Colorado remains a state where women in my shoes can access compassionate, life-saving health care close to home.
More than 18 weeks into my first and very wanted pregnancy with a baby girl, my water broke. I felt a pop while sitting at my desk at work on a Monday afternoon and rushed to the hospital, desperate for someone to tell me that my baby and I could still be OK.
Instead, I soon learned that I had experienced something called previable preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM), or the loss of amniotic fluid before a baby can survive outside the womb. The prognosis was grim for both of us: I was at risk of an infection that could threaten my uterus, my fertility, or my life. If our daughter were born alive — far from guaranteed — the most likely outcome for her would be that she would suffocate to death due to underdeveloped lungs from the lack of amniotic fluid.
Because I lived in Colorado, my doctors were able to give me a choice about how to proceed. I could continue with the pregnancy, risking my future fertility and my life and potentially putting my daughter through a painful death. Or, I could terminate our very wanted pregnancy, sparing our baby girl from suffocation and suffering and preserving my ability to have children in the future.
For our family, the choice was clear. With broken hearts, we chose to end our pregnancy at 19 weeks and say goodbye to our baby in the way that was right for us.
The days following our decision were filled with grief and heartache that I wouldn’t wish on anyone: going through labor with an induction abortion and giving birth to a baby who we knew would not survive. Holding our tiny daughter, taking in her every feature, and eventually having to walk out of the hospital without her. We were living every parent’s worst nightmare.
But what has struck me in the years since the fall of Roe v. Wade is what I didn’t have to experience during those dark days.
Since the Dobbs decision, I’ve heard the stories of women forced to flee their home states for abortion care, boarding planes while fearing they could go into labor or develop a life-threatening infection at any moment. Stories of women having to spend their precious last hours with their babies desperately planning travel and child care logistics instead of focusing on feeling their babies’ kicks for the last time. Stories of women being forced to wait until they are nearly dying from sepsis to access the abortion they needed to save their lives.
And the story that haunts me the most: a woman who, like me, experienced PPROM in her second trimester and — after nearly dying of sepsis and finally getting the abortion she needed — asked her physician whether she or they could go to jail for what she just experienced.
Because I live in Colorado, I was spared all of those additional layers of trauma while grieving my daughter and the life I had envisioned for us. I was able to receive care in a hospital in my own neighborhood, hold the hand of my own OB/GYN the night before my procedure, recover in the privacy of my own home, and — most importantly to me — maintain my ability to have children and go on to have two beautiful boys.
We must vote “yes” on Amendment 79 so that the compassionate health care I was able to access will be secure and out of the reach of politicians because it is guaranteed in the Colorado Constitution.
Sarah Hughes is a consultant and mom of two boys living in Denver, Colorado.
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