Two Black women in Florida have called out the state for denying them medical care in the wake of Gov. Ron DeSantis signing a six-week abortion ban into law on Thursday.
MSNBC’s Katie Phang spoke with Floridians Anya Cook and Shanae Smith-Cunningham on Saturday, the former of whom described feeling like she was going to die while pregnant last year.
The six-week ban could go into effect if the state’s current 15-week ban on abortions is upheld in a legal challenge in the Florida Supreme Court.
“You’re killing us,” Cook said in a message to Florida lawmakers.
Cook and Smith-Cunningham, who are friends and were both pregnant in December, described their heartbreaking stories of suffering miscarriages in The Washington Post last week.
Cook and Smith-Cunningham were denied care in December due to Florida’s 15-week abortion ban when they were 16 and 19 weeks pregnant, respectively.
Cook experienced hemorrhaging and lost half of her body’s blood in an operating room following the miscarriage. The two experienced a condition known as preterm pre-labor rupture of the membranes (PPROM), or when a pregnant person’s water breaks prior to viability.
The 15-week ban, which went into effect last year, has an exception for “fatal fetal anomaly” although this doesn’t apply to those with PPROM, the Post noted.
The stricter ban does not appear to include an exception for those experiencing PPROM either.
Cook recalled to Phang the moment a doctor told her they couldn’t do “anything” for her after her water broke and she stayed in a hospital’s waiting room for an hour.
“So basically I have to go home and wait it out, wait it out, and he’s like ‘unfortunately dear I am so sorry.’ You’re sorry for what? That I’m now going to have to deliver my daughter who will not be alive when she’s born,” said Cook.
She later reflected on having the baby at a hair salon.
“I ended up going there because I said if I was going to die, my mother wouldn’t have to do my hair,” she said.
Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones (D), who also joined Phang’s program on Saturday, issued a frightening warning that Florida’s government is overreaching.
“When you look at what just happened with Anya and Shanae, what we’re noticing is that that’s the reality: Black women are going to die,” Jones said. The U.S. is the only developed country with a rising maternal mortality rate, and Black women are three to four times more likely to die than white ones.
H/T Mediaite