Living and Dying Under Dobbs, vol. 5 (no audio). Scroll down to read the stories.
Volume 5 of the ongoing textile book.
Scroll down to read the stories.
In 2023, several months into her second pregnancy, Taysha Wilkinson-Sobieski of Indiana felt painful cramps. She went to the nearest local hospital, which had closed its labor and delivery unit a few weeks earlier. Like other states with abortion bans, Indiana has struggled to recruit and retain OB-GYNs. With no one to care for her, Taysha was transferred to Parkview Regional, where she died from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. "Every doctor who talked to me said it's a timing thing and they didn't treat her in time," her husband Clayton said. In his grief, Clayton has taken down photos of Taysha. But he has left her beloved Harry Potter Hufflepuff teddy bear in the bedroom of their son Reid, who was one year old when Taysha died.
In April 2025, a Texas woman ended her pregnancy using abortion medication. Two weeks later, on a tip from her partner, later convicted of domestic violence against her, police collected evidence like the medication package and opened a “death investigation” of a “nonviable fetus.” They attempted to locate the woman using more than 83,000 automatic license plate readers nationwide, listing the reason as “had an abortion, search for female.” Police asked the DA office about prosecuting her for her abortion, but were told Texas law didn’t allow it. When questioned by reporters, Sheriff Adam King claimed the search was not “a criminal investigation,” but a missing persons case “about her safety,” and then the office retroactively created a report to support this contention. In August, King “was indicted on multiple counts of sexual harassment. He’s accused of `unwelcome sexual advances’ and pressuring his female employees to undress in front of him.”
Delighted to finally be pregnant in her 40s, Mylissa Farmer named her unborn daughter Maeve, after an Irish warrior queen, because she believed her daughter was a “promise for the future” who would “change the world.” At 18 weeks of pregnancy, Mylissa’s water broke, and she rushed to the ER. She learned her pregnancy was doomed, but Missouri’s abortion ban prevented doctors from treating her until Mylissa’s life was in more danger. She and her husband drove three hours to Kansas where initially she was promised care, then doctors said it was impossible because “the situation was too politically heated.” Four days later in Illinois, Mylissa received the care she needed. “My daughter was a promise I didn’t get to keep, but all of that love has to go somewhere,” says Mylissa. “So now it’s going here. Into a story I wish I never had to tell, in hopes that someday we can ensure that no one ever endures suffering like mine again.”
In 2025, after finding a mass on her left fallopian tube and suspecting an ectopic pregnancy, an ER referred Harmonie to an OB-GYN affiliated with the Catholic health network Ascension. The doctor refused to terminate the pregnancy, even though if it ruptured it would destroy Harmonie’s only remaining fallopian tube and threaten her life. Even though abortion is legal in Illinois, the OB said Harmonie couldn’t “force” her to end the pregnancy because there was a “one percent” chance it was viable. She first told Harmonie to just “Google” another hospital then sent her to a medical clinic that did not have the ability to treat her. Harmonie went to yet another hospital, where she begged nurses in the hallway: “Please someone listen to me, I don’t want to die.” Finally, someone listened.
A month after Texan Yeni Alvarez was married in 2022, she learned she was pregnant. Hypertension, obesity, a history of pulmonary edema, and diabetes rendered Yeni’s pregnancy dangerous, but her access to health and prenatal care was spotty because she was undocumented and uninsured. At seven weeks of pregnancy, Yeni began to experience periodic spikes in her blood pressure, breathing problems, and bleeding. After a hypertensive crisis at 31 weeks, Yeni and her baby died. The medical examiner listed pregnancy as a contributing factor in her death, but in Yeni’s more than three thousand pages of medical records there is no mention that anyone ever raised abortion as a possible intervention. In obstetrics “you have two patients,” one doctor said. “Your job is to get both through the pregnancy safely, but that’s not always possible. And it’s very frustrating to have your hands tied because the patient who you need to save is not the one that’s protected by law.”
I write this on 9/11/25, on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, when the names of those killed are read in memorial services in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania. Trump also announced today that he will posthumously award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who was killed at Utah Valley University yesterday and who said that abortion was “worse” than the Holocaust. As of today, abortion bans have killed seven identified women: Josseli Barnica, Yeniifer Alvarez, Porsha Ngumezi, Nevaeh Crain, Amber Thurman, Candi Miller, and Taysha Wilkinson-Sobieski. According to a March 2025 study, abortion bans killed at least three more unnamed women between October 2022 and July 2024. That’s ten. Ten women dead. At least. Whose lives do we honor? Whose deaths do we remember? And how many have to die?
Sources
Taysha Wilkinson-Sobieski.
“A maternity wing closed. One month later, a young mom died when she couldn't get care.” IndyStar. August 29, 2025.
“The bleak future of OB-GYNS in Indiana.” Indiana Capital Chronicle. March 13, 2025.
“States With Abortion Bans See Continued Decrease in U.S. MD Senior Residency Applicants.” AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges). May 9, 2024.
“Impact of Dobbs Decision on Retention of Indiana Medical Students for Residency.” Paper presented at Indiana University School of Medicine Education Day. April 28, 2023.
Texas woman tracked by automatic license plate reader technology.
“Flock Safety and Texas Sheriff Claimed License Plate Search Was for a Missing Person. It Was an Abortion Investigation.” Electronic Frontier Foundation. October 7, 2025.
“Cops Used 83K Cameras to Track an Abortion Patient—on Her Abuser’s Tip.” Abortion, Every Day. October 7, 2025.
Mylissa Farmer.
“Opinion: I was denied a life-saving abortion at two hospitals. Here’s what I think of the Supreme Court decision.” CNN.com. June 28, 2024.
Harmonie.
“Illinois Woman Denied Treatment for Ectopic Pregnancy.” Abortion, Every Day. October 14, 2025.
Harmonie’s video describing her experience. TikTok. October 12, 2025.
Yeni Alvarez.
“Did an Abortion Ban Cost a Young Texas Woman Her Life?” The New Yorker. January 8, 2024 .
Sept. 11, 2025.
“US Physicians’ Perceived Impacts of Abortion Bans in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.” CHEST Journal. March 19, 2025.
“Rest in Power: A Running List of the Preventable Deaths Caused by Abortion Bans.” Ms.
“Trump Awards Charlie Kirk Posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.” PBS.org. October 14, 2025.
“What were assassinated right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk's views?” Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Sept. 12, 2025.