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Having a Preemie Made Me More Pro-Choice
I’m not going to let Trump use the struggle my daughter faced as an infant as a reason to take away her rights as an adult
At the State of the Union, one of President Donald Trump’s guests was a mother and her toddler who was born prematurely. Her presence, the president made clear, was meant to bolster his stance against abortion. “Born at just 21 weeks and six days, and weighing less than a pound, Ellie Schneider was born a fighter,” Trump said before calling for a ban on abortion.
This isn’t just horrific to me on a political level; it’s personal. My daughter was born three months early after I got sick with pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome — we both nearly died. Layla spent eight weeks in the NICU where she was intubated and had a central line IV threaded up to her heart. While she was there, she had collapsed lung, a blood transfusion, was fed through a tube, and stopped breathing more times than I can possibly count.
You have no idea how a medical trauma like this can stay with you until you experience it yourself.
Even after Layla left the hospital, she endured two years of early intervention programs…
