Missouri Women Nearly Dies From Self Abortion, Says She Feared Jail Time Due To Abortion Laws

This week, a Missouri woman spoke before a congressional committee about the terrifying facts of her self-managed abortion in a state where most abortions are illegal.

Holt, a mother of five, described how she felt when she learned she was expecting. Holt was already eight weeks pregnant, therefore the earliest she could schedule an appointment for a medication abortion at the closest facility where it was legal (outside of Missouri) was in four weeks.

She added waiting longer would require her to undergo a surgical procedure and would require more financial resources that she did not possess as a single working mother of 4 kids. She said she found options and had the pills mailed to her.

 It took a total of 18 days for Holt to receive her order because the initial batch of pills she ordered was stolen and the replacement batch didn’t arrive for many days. She pointed out that abortion pills are “most effective before 13 weeks,” but she still chose to take the pills even though she was past the 13-week mark. She claimed that within minutes, she started to severely hemorrhage, experience cramps, and grow dizzy. She eventually went to her car so she would not traumatize her children from the sight of seeing her constantly spilling blood

THE ER ROOM

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After about an hour, Holt’s kids contacted their grandmother, who discovered her unconscious and fully covered in blood in her car. She was rushed off to the ER for severe blood loss, she “nodded in and out of consciousness for several minutes.” When Holt was rushed to a Catholic hospital’s emergency room, she admitted, “Instead of thinking about survival, I thought about not going to jail.”

Holt’s story inspired her to talk to the congressional panel on behalf of many Missouri residents who have been left without access to abortions and must take extreme measures to obtain them.