Congresswoman on carrying her stillborn before Roe v. Wade

Brut America

Congresswoman Frederica Wilson told the story of how she was forced to carry her stillborn baby until labor before Roe v. Wade … even though it could’ve killed her.

Transcript

00:00I almost died. As the days became weeks and the weeks became months, the baby began to

00:06disintegrate and the flesh from the corpse began to fill into my bloodstream.

00:12After getting married in 1968, I would soon become a mother-to-be. It was the joy of my

00:19life. I was ecstatic. My husband was walking on the clouds. My husband and I would touch

00:25my stomach all the time just to feel the movement of our baby boy and the glory of a life growing

00:32inside of me. It was amazing. Then at seven months, the baby stopped moving. He was soon

00:39pronounced dead, right inside of my womb. And the doctor was prohibited by law from

00:46inducing labor. I had to learn how, first of all, to handle the immense grief that comes

00:54with losing a child and the fact that the corpse of that child was still within me.

01:02I cried every night and all day. My little body was wretched with pain, weakness, and

01:09frailty. I lost 50 pounds. I would crawl into a fetal position in my mother's lap most of

01:16the day and in my husband's most of the night. I almost died. As the days became weeks and

01:23the weeks became months, the baby began to disintegrate and the flesh from the corpse

01:29began to fill into my bloodstream. I was at risk for toxic shock. Poison was flowing through

01:37my grief-stricken little body. At eight and a half months, I went into labor, hard, painful

01:45labor. And what was left of the baby Wilson boy was born. Oh, what a day. Oh, what pain,

01:53oh, what grief, oh, what despair, oh, what suffering. After three days, I left the maternity

01:59ward in a wheelchair, empty-handed, no baby, no nothing. I watched other mothers and families

02:05celebrate their newborns while I grieved and cried. We had a small graveside burial for

02:11baby boy Wilson, and the doctors were so afraid that I would also have had to have

02:18a graveside burial. Do not take us back to the days before Roe v. Wade. Everyone who

02:26needs reproductive health care is different. Abortion does not only apply to women who

02:33have decided for themselves they're not ready to have a child. Abortion affects women who

02:39are at risk of facing medical emergencies, life-altering emergencies, and death. God

02:47of our weary years, God of our silent tears, let the women march on and on till victory

02:54is won. You cannot put young, childbearing women at risk because of the group of ludicrous,

03:02hateful majority male congressmen who have no idea what it feels to even bear the pain

03:08of childbirth or even have the courage to carry a child for nine months, who take pride

03:14in monitoring women's vaginas. How dare you? How dare you? How dare you? May God help you

03:23find it in your heart to hear my story and never wish that kind of pain and grief that

03:30I experienced on another living soul. I have heard the women of Congress come to the floor

03:39one by one by one to tell their personal stories about abortion. I'm a very private person

03:49and I just couldn't do it. I didn't want to relive the most painful time in my entire

03:57life. But yesterday I read the startling statistics about my state. If abortion is

04:07banned nationwide, Florida will be the most impacted state, seeing maternal deaths increase

04:15by 29 percent. That's the mother. The nation will see a 24 percent increase in maternal

04:22death with a disproportionate 39 percent rise in maternal mortality for black women.

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