When Kaycee Maruscsak\u2019s baby died before birth, she had to carry the infant\u2019s corpse in her womb for more than a week because, she said, doctors refused to remove it for fear of violating Georgia\u2019s abortion restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI should not have had to wait eight days to have a dead baby removed out of me,\u201d she said at the state Capitol Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story of the 31-year-old Lilburn woman was part of the bitter testimony during a state Senate Urban Affairs Committee hearing.The hearing was scheduled on the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s decision striking down the decades-old legal precedent that had guaranteed women\u2019s right to abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No Republican officials appeared for the hearing, including Attorney General Chris Carr. He declined the Democrats\u2019 invitation to talk about Georgia\u2019s abortion law, which bans the procedure once a fetal heartbeat is detected, typically around six weeks from conception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Supreme Court\u2019s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization allowed Georgia\u2019s 2019 abortion restrictions to take full effect last year, after a delay caused by a lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pregnant women have subsequently been denied medical care in Georgia during miscarriages because of uncertainty among doctors about whether they could face prosecution for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In one highly publicized case, Amber Nicole Thurman died after doctors delayed removing remnants of her fetus after she self-aborted the baby by taking pills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her mother, Shanette Williams, asserted her death was caused by doctors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe didn\u2019t just die. She was murdered by the people who took the oath to do no harm,\u201d said Williams, who testified at Tuesday\u2019s hearing via Zoom. She said her daughter died of sepsis, which she said could have been avoided with a 3-minute procedure that she said was withheld for 20 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She described taking her grandson, now 8, to scatter Skittles over his mother\u2019s grave \u2014 one of her favorite snacks \u2014 on a rainy Mother\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democratic senators and others who testified blamed a \u201cvague\u201d Georgia abortion ban that they said creates an \u201cair of criminality\u201d around women who miscarry or need an abortion for a medical reason. They skewered Carr, who is running for governor, saying he could reduce the number of these incidents by issuing an opinion clarifying when abortion is legal under the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II, D-Augusta, called Carr\u2019s absence \u201cshameful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a press conference after the hearing, the Democratic senators drove home their point with a poster showing Carr\u2019s smiling portrait on a milk carton, under the word \u201cmissing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carr\u2019s office told Capitol Beat that he informed the committee weeks ago that he had longstanding commitments and could not attend the hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s disappointing to see a serious topic overshadowed by partisan theatrics,\u201d Carr\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maruscsak, who had to carry her daughter, Sawyer, in her womb for a week after the baby\u2019s heartbeat stopped, described her struggles to find medical care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said she visited multiple doctors and abortion clinics and even waited seven hours in an emergency room overflow bed, while bleeding, and couldn\u2019t get the fetus removed despite symptoms of sepsis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maruscsak said she had placenta previa, whereby the placenta attaches to the wrong part of the uterus. She said she had to leave the emergency room to find a doctor who was bold enough to remove the fetus despite the abortion ban, eventually trying as many as five doctors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She predicted that other Georgia women will have the same life-threatening experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis issue will touch every family in some way, someday,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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