MADISON, Wis.-- “A living nightmare” is what Gracie Ladd calls her experience having to travel across state lines to get an abortion.
Abortions at or after 21 weeks represent 1% of all abortions in the U.S. according to KKF. Claims of abortions occurring “ moments before birth ” or even “ after birth ” are false. This is not legal in the United States.
Gracie Ladd falls into the rare statistic of these women that seek an abortion later in the term because of medical complications such as fetal abnormalities or maternal life-endangerment. For the first 20 weeks of her pregnancy, Ladd thought everything was normal.
“We found out we were pregnant with our second child." "Found out he was a boy,”
In January of 2024, Ladd had just hit the halfway mark of 20-weeks into her pregnancy.
In Wisconsin, around 20 weeks is the cutoff mark for women to get an abortion, but this wasn't on Ladd’s radar at the time.
“He was very much wanted. We were excited to have two boys. We picked his name: Connor,”
It was a huge shock when Ladd and her husband went in for their future son Connor’s anatomy scan.
“Halfway through the scan, they pulled us into a separate room where our doctor was and before she even kind of went over the results, she said, ‘I'm so sorry." "It appears from what I'm seeing it looks like your baby is going to be incompatible with life’,” said Ladd.
Ladd’s baby had polycystic kidney syndrome, which could have put her health at risk.
“He wouldn't make it to full term,” Ladd said.
That's when the world started spinning for Ladd. She made the painful decision that terminating the pregnancy was the safest option for her health and future fertility. After that, she realized it was too late to get the care she needed in Wisconsin.
“I was scared that if I went to this hospital in Wisconsin, would I possibly be prosecuted? And nobody knew the answer to that.”
Ever since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, expecting mothers in Wisconsin have had to tiptoe around abortion care, and Ladd says even her healthcare providers were hesitant.
“Their answer was, basically hospitals don't offer abortion procedures because they don't want to be affiliated with the word ‘abortion’ right now in Wisconsin,” Ladd said.
This was Ladd’s living nightmare. Making the toughest decision of her life, and then because of the politics of it all, she had to rush to Chicago to get an abortion.
“It's a living nightmare to go through it, and it wasn't an easy decision,” Ladd said. “Going through all of the emotions of learning that you'll never hold your child, and then having to travel and meet a whole team the day that your son essentially stops living." "It was, it was traumatic.”
Ladd is now pregnant again with a healthy girl, but the past weighs on her especially during her doctor visits.
“She [Ladd’s doctor] was checking out the list saying that they all looked good, I just broke down in tears because it was very hard to hear that everything was good for this one,” said Ladd. “You can't help but think, why couldn't it have been that way for Connor?”
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