An American woman nearly died when she couldn't get an abortion needed to save her life. The incident happened when 38-year-old Andrea Prudente was on vacation with her husband in Malta. Ironically, it happened the same day Roe v. Wade was overturned in the US.
Prudente told Today that she was 16 weeks pregnant when she woke up in a large pool of blood. "A doctor overseeing my care in Malta told me my baby was going to die," she told the outlet while still in recovery. "He said I was at risk of infection and hemorrhage, but because of the abortion laws in Malta he couldn't do anything for me."
That was true even though Prudente was already miscarrying, the placenta had partially detached, and she was leaking amniotic fluid.
Malta has strict laws against abortion, so because doctors could detect a fetal heartbeat, providing the care was illegal. “I was in the bathroom and overheard the doctor tell Jay that if I was his patient, and we were in London where he also practices, he would have saw what he saw on the ultrasound and immediately given me medication to start the process of terminating the pregnancy,” Prudente explained. “But this is Malta.”
There was no way Prudente's baby could have survived. Still, she was unable to get an abortion to save her own life.
Her only option was to get out of the country as fast as possible. Prudente was taken to the airport in an ambulance, terrified that she might bleed out during the two-hour flight to Spain.
"I was on a stretcher in the plane, focusing on staying calm and chill and to not have my body do anything scary," she explained. "We understood there to be a serious risk of hemorrhage during the flight. So yeah, it was really scary."
The couple arrived in Majorca, Spain. Prudente was immediately given the abortion pill to begin the process. "They gave me that first pill that night, which was heartbreaking and hard to emotionally take," she said. "Later they started the tablets and I labored for eight hours, delivering early Saturday morning."
Prudente was allowed to hold her 16-week-old baby and say goodbye. Days later, when the couple returned from vacation, they realized that her entire ordeal took place the day Roe v. Wade was overturned.
"I think some anti-abortion people maybe have never considered instances like this," Prudente said. "Like, sometimes your ideology crashes into a wall of reality."
