PROSPER, Texas — A Prosper woman told WFAA she had to wait until she developed sepsis before physicians could provide her with lifesaving abortion care.
"She was…. a dream come true for us…," Kristen Anaya cried, remembering her late baby.
Kristen and her husband Stephen Anaya badly wanted a baby. They went through two long rounds of IVF and documented their joy in home videos when she finally got pregnant.
But suddenly at 16 weeks, Kristen lost nearly all her amniotic fluid. Tylee, hospital doctors said, would not survive.
"I was being told that I was losing my daughter…" Stephen cried. "And then…and then the fear of losing my wife too?"
Doctors told Kristen they needed to deliver Tylee to keep her alive. But Tylee still technically had a heartbeat, and under Texas’ strict abortion laws, she said doctors told her they had to wait.
"I assume if they had to stand up in court one day, the numbers weren’t bad enough to prove my life was in danger," she explained.
Kristen said doctors had to get approval from ethics and “termination” committees at the hospital. It wasn’t until she developed sepsis that they could induce her, she says.
"It made me angry," Stephen said.
"It’s like how are you not able to help? And then to be thrown in this category of abortion that’s not close to what we ever wanted."
Kristen is now among 22 plaintiffs suing the state.
"We’re not trying to overturn the law," she says.
Their lawsuit asks the courts to clarify the medical exemption under the state’s abortion ban, so doctors can act sooner, she says, without fear of prosecution.
"Because if we don’t, people are just gonna keep assuming the medical exceptions written into the law work," Kristen said.