Twenty-seven-year-old Hannah Morris gave birth to twins a few months ago in Washington. She is accused of being “inhumane” for refusing an abortion. The young mother recounts her story.
Just 16 weeks into her pregnancy, Hannah Morris’ water broke due to an E. coli infection. Doctors informed her that there was a “100 percent chance that this baby won’t survive”, or would be born with disabilities. They offered her a drug to induce labour, seeing this as the only option. The young mother says she acted on a “gut instinct“. “I said ‘if I am going to lose them I lose them naturally and I’ll let nature take its course’” she explains. In the hospital, she was left alone in a room for 48 hours, waiting for a miscarriage. “Not one single doctor or nurse or healthcare professional came in this room“, she explains. However, two days later, a test showed that both babies were healthy.
At the follow-up appointment one week later, a doctor introduced a care plan warning her that if she reached “24 weeks, which is viability, their limbs would be stuck to their bodies“. Other doctors tried to dissuade her from keeping her children. They predicted “their lungs won’t be developed and their kidneys won’t be developed“. The doctors also stated that refusing an abortion was “oimmensely inhumane and was the worst thing I could do”.
Hannah Morris chose to stay in bed and drank up to eight litres of water a day to maintain adequate reserves. Every week, despite repeatedly receiving negative comments from medical professionals, she and her husband were reassured that “the scan showed our babies were healthy and fine”.
Against all odds, Hannah Morris reached 34 weeks and gave birth to George and Alfie by Caesarean section. “Despite Alfie being born with holes in his heart and George suffering a weakened immune system” both children are now a few months old and are doing really well. Hannah Morris is now calling for “better education for doctors and awareness for the public on the pregnancy complication“. According to Ciara Curran, founder of Little Heartbeats, “all too often parents are told that there’s no hope and that their only option is abortion, but babies can and do survive“.
Daily mail, Vanessa Chalmers (12/02/19) – Mother was ‘labelled inhumane’ by doctors for refusing to abort her ‘100% goner’ twins after her waters broke 16 weeks into pregnancy – but BOTH are now healthy toddlers