MoxSync

Danielle Campoamor is a freelance writer.

I first considered moving my family from New York to rural South Dakota after my beloved grandfather — recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s — broke his hip. He required surgery and physical therapy, all while navigating the unfair, nefarious reality of dementia.

The family member caring for my grandfather in the place he’s called home for 87 years needed a reprieve, so for six nights I slept on a couch and kept watch as the towering man of my youth meandered to the bathroom and back with his walker and argued with his demons. After visiting my grandparents with my two young sons in tow, I decided to move.

That was already a big decision for my small family — but then, before returning to South Dakota to look for houses, I found out I was pregnant. I took one pregnancy test on a whim, another out of disbelief, a third to confirm, a fourth to confirm the confirmation. I was shocked. I was excited. I imagined a reality in which I was a mom of three, recalling the sleepless nights, pregnancy pains and breastfeeding woes I knew, without hesitation, I wanted to relive again.

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Then I recalled another reality: South Dakota has a near-total abortion ban.

The state’s trigger law went into effect immediately after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, outlawing all abortions except to protect the life of the pregnant person. There are no exceptions for rape, incest or the prevention of serious injury, and the “exception” language itself is vague. Doctors are forced to consider what constitutes dying or being near-death “enough” before intervening. Others are advised by legal experts not to intervene at all.

Since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the media has highlighted how abortion bans harm not just those with unwanted pregnancies but also those carrying wanted ones. Studies show these restrictive laws disproportionately affect Black, Brown and Indigenous mothers. Women undergo invasive and unnecessary C-sections. They wait in emergency room parking lots until their nonviable pregnancies render them sick “enough” to receive care. They miscarry alone in hospital bathrooms and carry nonviable pregnancies to term only to watch their infants — born with a portion of their skulls and brains — die.

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Many of these women require abortions that occur later in pregnancy, which account for 1 percent of all abortions. Rare cases, in other words, but I know what it’s like to be on the losing end of a statistic. In 2014, I was pregnant with twins and eagerly expecting two beautiful babies. Less than 0.5 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage at or after 20 weeks’ gestation, yet I lost Twin A at nearly 20 weeks. Decades of data did not shield me from numerous hospitalizations because of a blood infection and several preterm labor scares. Probability did not protect me from the trauma of giving birth to a baby who cried and to the silent remains of a fetus that never would.

Now, at 37, I have what is referred to as a “geriatric pregnancy,” meaning I’m automatically high-risk. Given my medical history, it’s not hyperbole to consider worst-case scenarios and how South Dakota law would make them worse. To many liberals, relocating to an antiabortion state likely seems an act of stupidity, at best.

Yet abandoning the first safe place I knew as a child shouldn’t be encouraged. Entire generations cannot be uprooted because of conservative lawmakers and their cruelty. Families cannot afford to move, find new jobs and untether themselves from the support they have found in family members, friends and community members alike.

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My grandfather is not incapacitated. Forever the stubborn and strong cowboy I’ve always known, he still has stories to tell and great grandchildren to admire. The Supreme Court already took away my constitutional right to an abortion. I will not allow South Dakota Republicans to steal what precious time I have left with the greatest man I’ve ever known.

I am privileged, so I will access care elsewhere. I plan on giving birth in nearby Minnesota — where access to abortion care is a fundamental right — and I’ll drive two hours or so to a Minnesota-based OB/GYN for prenatal care. I am painfully aware that not every pregnant South Dakotan has that option.

Oh, and I will hope.

I’ll hope I won’t experience a pregnancy complication — one that could land me in a South Dakota hospital, where physicians will weigh my life against the risk of incarceration. I’ll hope doctors do not discover a fatal fetal abnormality on a random Thursday, forcing me to travel even further so I can have what I know to be a humane, merciful abortion that will spare my future child a short life of suffering.

I’ll hope the South Dakota Right to Abortion Initiative will pass and abortion care will be enshrined in the state’s constitution.

I’ll hope I won’t be a statistic.

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