Jessa Duggar Seewald became famous as one of the children of the reality series 19 Kids and Counting. The daughter of a family that opposes all birth control and prohibits women or girls from wearing pants or having work other than as wives and mothers, Seewald is now a 30-year-old mother of four who does sometimes wear pants. And she’s a woman who recently had an abortion procedure because she was miscarrying.
Seewald recounted this experience in an 18-minute YouTube video that shows her and her husband, Ben Seewald, telling their children another baby was on the way. It intercuts other family scenes with Seewald speaking to the camera, describing her concerns for her pregnancy when she had some light spotting, and her worries about getting to an ultrasound appointment in bad weather. The ultrasound appointment brings bad news, and Seewald describes electing, due to a history of hemorrhaging, to get a dilation and curettage (D&C) rather than waiting out the miscarriage. It’s a completely reasonable story of a woman getting good medical care following bad news about a wanted pregnancy. Being open and forthcoming about miscarriage stories is a good thing to do.
Except it’s also the story of someone whose family has campaigned for more restrictive abortion laws—the kind of laws that have put the exact type of care Seewald received out of reach for too many people. People should get this care. Policies actively supported by Seewald’s family have made it unavailable for too many people, which makes it remarkable that she got this care. We should talk about that.
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It’s been widely noted that Seewald doesn’t say the word “abortion” in the video, although a D&C is an abortion, whatever the reason for it being performed. But another thing she doesn’t say in so many words is that there was no heartbeat. That the fetus was already definitely dead. It is very likely that was the case, since Arkansas, where she lives, has a near-total abortion ban. But she doesn’t spell it out. There’s no doubt that the pregnancy was not viable, and not just because of her state’s laws or her specific politics around abortion but also because of her obvious grief. But she doesn’t say the thing that Republicans across the country are demanding as a standard—and then often not accepting anyway.
I don’t want to demand that a woman in pain go into gruesome detail about what her doctors told her. That should never be a demand—but so many pregnant people are being forced to prove beyond any doubt whatsoever that the fetuses they carry are not only not viable, not only going to die, but have already died. Where for Seewald, it’s enough to report that she was told, “sac looks good, baby does not,” and then, after a discussion with her doctor, decided “to go to the hospital, get checked in there, and go through the process of a D&C,” other people have to show in great detail that their fetuses are without any possible question completely dead. Even then, it’s not always enough, and it’s not hard to find examples of that happening.
The New York Times reported that a Texas woman named Amanda got a D&C when she miscarried in 2021. In 2022, after Texas banned the vast majority of abortions, she had another miscarriage—and this time, the same hospital sent her home to wait even though she was bleeding and her hospital records noted that her embryo didn’t have cardiac activity, that she was in pain, and that “This appears to be miscarriage in process.”
She did not get the treatment she had gotten the previous year; she did not get the treatment Jessa Duggar Seewald got.
While Amanda’s case was particularly striking because of the difference in treatment she got before and after the Texas law, her experience the second time was not unique. The Times reports:
A study from two Dallas hospitals reported on 28 patients whose water broke or who had other serious complications before 22 weeks’ gestation, and who, because of Texas laws, didn’t receive medical intervention until there was an “immediate threat” to their lives or fetal cardiac activity stopped. On average, the patients waited nine days, and 57 percent ended up with serious infections, bleeding or other medical problems, the report said.
Marlena Stell of Texas was told at an ultrasound, “There is no heartbeat. There is no viable pregnancy.” But Stell’s doctor refused to provide a D&C, the abortion procedure Seewald had, until Stell had had a second ultrasound to confirm the fetal death. She’d had one devastating ultrasound, though, and didn’t want another, explaining, “Someone shoves a wand in my sensitive area and tells me, 'Hey, you lost your baby' again. I shouldn't have to go through that twice." It took Stell two weeks to find a doctor who would perform the D&C—weeks during which she carried her dead fetus and faced the real possibility of health complications.
She did not get the care Jessa Duggar Seewald got.
When Carmen Broesder went to the hospital in Idaho, bleeding heavily, there was no detectable fetal heartbeat—but she was sent home anyway, and told to wait several days for an already-scheduled OB/GYN appointment. She made repeated visits to hospitals and her own doctor. She repeatedly requested a D&C as she continued miscarrying and bleeding, and she was refused, although the second hospital gave her medicine to control the bleeding.
It’s great that Jessa Duggar Seewald was able to get an ultrasound after a little spotting, and a D&C after that single ultrasound showed her fetus was not viable. That is not the standard care people experiencing miscarriages receive in states where abortion is banned. The list of cases goes on and on and on.
Amanda Zurawski, also of Texas, learned at 18 weeks that her pregnancy was not viable because her cervix had dilated too early. Her doctors said although the pregnancy was not viable, they could not perform an abortion until the fetal heartbeat stopped or Zurawski’s life was at immediate risk. The latter happened when she developed sepsis; she was taken straight to the ICU after delivery.
“It took three days at home until I became sick 'enough' that the ethics board at our hospital agreed we could begin medical treatment; three days until my life was considered at risk 'enough' for the inevitable premature delivery of my daughter to be performed; three days until the doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals were allowed to do their jobs,” she wrote.
Nancy Davis, of Louisiana, had to go to New York for an abortion at 10 weeks when an ultrasound showed that her fetus was missing the top of its skull—a condition incompatible with life. Louisiana’s abortion ban has an exception for cases where a baby will not survive, but the Baton Rouge hospital Davis was at would not provide an abortion because the specific condition of acrania was not listed in the law among allowable exceptions. As we’ve seen again and again in the past year, very often, exceptions to abortion bans are meaningless because medical providers are afraid they will be prosecuted for providing any abortion, even where an exception should apply.
Christina Zielke knew she was miscarrying when she traveled from Washington, D.C., to visit family in Ohio, but had elected to wait rather than seek a procedure or medication. While in Ohio, she began bleeding heavily, but an emergency room sent her home to continue bleeding, telling her she needed to wait two days to prove the pregnancy wasn’t viable before she could have a D&C—even after she offered them documentation of her miscarriage.
The federal government is investigating a case in Missouri in which a hospital denied a woman an abortion after her water broke at 18 weeks, making the pregnancy not viable and putting her at risk of infection. Mylissa Farmer’s doctors said an abortion was medically indicated. They were overruled by hospital lawyers.
Just a month after South Carolina banned abortion after six weeks, Jill Hartle found out about a serious heart anomaly at her 18-week scan. She had to wait through weeks of testing to find out how serious the problem was, then waited two weeks for an appointment for an abortion in Washington, D.C. During that time, "Every time I felt her move was like a dagger to the heart," she told People. "And the mental toll: I was grieving the loss of my child while still carrying her and also waiting to be taken care of so that I could start the healing process."
You can see the crushing mental toll on this woman:
Miscarrying a wanted pregnancy is never easy. But getting the care needed to minimize the physical pain and difficulty and danger—that should be easy. That part should be as easy as Seewald’s video made it out to be. We should live in a country where the standard of care for a miscarriage is “I’m so sorry, your pregnancy is not viable. Here are your medical options—your doctors and nurses are here to support you in your choice and give you the best possible care.”
We do not live in that country. We live in a country where women are sent home to bleed and suffer and risk infection by hospitals that know their fetus has no heartbeat or cannot possibly survive, no matter what. And people like Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are a large part of the reason for that. When their daughter gets the care they have worked to deny others, it’s a remarkable story.
Yes, electing the president by popular vote is possible! Joining us on The Downballot is former Vermont legislator Christopher Pearson, an official with National Popular Vote, the organization advocating for states to adopt a compact that would award their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who gets the most votes nationwide. Pearson walks us through the mechanics of the compact, debunks some common misconceptions, and lays out future steps toward hitting the required 270 electoral votes for the agreement to come into force.
