Vogue Writer Shares Abortion Story

In this month’s Vogue, writer Lori Campbell shares her experience with a complicated pregnancy and her decision to obtain a second trimester abortion. In 1998, 22 weeks into a wanted pregnancy, Campbell was diagnosed with an incompetent cervix. Her water broke, and doctors told her she would likely go into labor within a week and her fetus would have only a one percent chance of survival and was almost guaranteed to have severe disabilities including brain damage.

Campbell and her husband made the choice to terminate the pregnancy using a procedure that has since been outlawed by the Supreme Court. During her experience, Campbell notes the one thing that never factored into her decision was politics. Unfortunately, last year’s Supreme Court decision to ban certain abortion procedures placed politics above protecting women’s health. When the Court issued its decision in April, Campbell says she “couldn’t help thinking, they cannot know what they are doing.”