‘You just don't know.’

Editor’s note: This story includes mention of potentially triggering situations including abortion, abuse and sexual abuse.

Danielle Spry, a nurse, held her daughter against her chest for the first and last time in a hospital bed. She had a dilation and evacuation — a type of abortion — due to serious health complications with her daughter, Charlotte. She was 21 weeks and 6 days pregnant.

Taylor Gardner, a preschool teacher, always wanted kids — specifically two. She grew up with one younger brother, who she adored since he was born. She babysat and tutored children and went to college for early childhood education. But when she became pregnant with a third, she wasn’t ready.

Sarah Renfro, a reverend, visited a reproductive healthcare clinic for the first time when she was a pre-teen. Her mother took her there to educate her on the menstrual cycle. She revisited the clinic twice more — once when she was 19 and once when she was 27 — each time for an abortion.

Abortion rights came under fire after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned their nearly 50-year-old decision on Roe v. Wade in 2022. The initial ruling protected abortion access constitutionally through at least the first trimester, but the overturned decision now allows states to create laws prohibiting abortion at any stage.

Indiana enacted a near-total abortion ban Aug. 2023, relenting only in cases of rape or incest up to 10 weeks, or severe risk to the mother or fetus up to 20. Mifepristone, a pill that stops the growth of a pregnancy, cannot be used after eight weeks. Abortions cannot be administered by reproductive healthcare clinics.

Three central Indiana women told the Indiana Daily Student of their experiences seeking and obtaining abortions before Indiana’s current restriction took effect.

All three women emphasized the importance of having bodily autonomy. All three intend to vote for Kamala Harris to be the next president.

•••

Danielle, 38, woke up from anesthesia Nov. 21, 2019, in the operating room to the sound of her nurse’s voice asking someone for a hat. The doctor who performed the procedure followed as she was wheeled back to her room and handed Danielle her daughter.

Dressed in a white hat with a pink bow and wrapped in a white blanket with pink and blue stripes, Charlotte weighed less than a pound.

The doctor instructed Danielle and her husband not to open the blanket — just to hold her. A dilation and evacuation procedure can lead to the fetus being disfigured.

“She’s so beautiful,” Danielle told her husband. “She’s just perfect.”

Danielle still remembers the smell of the cleaning solution from the labor and delivery floor, how the sound of life around her faded into the background like static. For her time stopped, but everything else around her continued.

Danielle counted each of her daughter’s ten toes, which stuck out from the blanket. She held Charlotte until she was ready to say goodbye.

“I’m really, really sorry,” Danielle told her.

Danielle spoke to the Indiana Senate and House of Representatives following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. She told them about Charlotte.

The day she spoke to the House, she remembers waiting in line in the courtroom. She could hear protesters and counter-protesters outside the statehouse. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears. Then it was her turn. She had two minutes. Two minutes to convince the legislators that the right to choose matters.

Before, during and after her testimony, Danielle heard counter protesters yelling abortion is murder. She remembers thinking, “you just don’t know.”

•••

The overturning of Roe v. Wade was the loss of a human right, Indiana obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Caitlin Bernard said. States having their own individual abortion laws creates confusion surrounding what medical providers can do and what patients can receive. Many state laws do not define in detail the legality of abortions. In Indiana, for instance, abortions are permitted in cases when pregnancy poses serious health risks to the mother.

“When a pregnancy is health and life threatening, how sick does somebody have to be?” Bernard said. “How much blood do they have to lose? How infected do they have to be? These are the things nobody has defined.”

Bernard became a target for many Indiana lawmakers in 2022 after the Indianapolis Star reported she had performed an abortion on an Ohio 10-year-old who was raped.

Bernard told the Star about the girl being forced to travel to Indiana to receive an abortion due to Ohio’s strict abortion laws. The story broke just a week after Roe v. Wade was overturned, but before Indiana’s abortion ban went into effect. At the time, Indiana permitted abortions up to 22 weeks into a pregnancy.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita launched an investigation into Bernard, an IU Health employee, for violating HIPAA patient privacy rights by speaking about a case to the media and failing to report a case of abuse. He also filed a lawsuit against IU Health for failing to protect a patient’s privacy.

Many conservative pundits and politicians accused Bernard of falsifying the story. But the crime's perpetrator was later identified, proving Bernard's testimony to be true. Rokita was disciplined by the Indiana Supreme Court for referring to Bernard as an “abortion activist acting as a doctor, with a history of failing to report.

The Indiana Licensing Board issued her a $3,000 fine after finding that she did violate privacy laws by speaking to a reporter about the case. However, the board unanimously decided Bernard followed abuse reporting protocol, and the abuse was reported immediately.

Rokita dropped the lawsuit against IU Health on Aug. 7, 2024.

Bernard rejects the idea that there is a dichotomy between “pro-life” and “pro-choice.”

“I’m an OB-GYN. I deliver babies every day,” Bernard said. “There’s nothing about me that is not pro-life.”

Many lawmakers don’t fully grasp the potential consequences and risks of unwanted pregnancies, Bernard said. A forced pregnancy can negatively affect one’s mental and physical health. It can also make it difficult to receive an education or income.

“You can’t just snap your fingers and create a support system for people,” Bernard said. “For many people it just doesn’t exist, it’s a not a reality for their life.”

•••

Danielle found out Charlotte was a girl after genetic blood tests in her 10th week of pregnancy. The tests showed that Charlotte had no genetic diseases. It was almost false hope, Danielle said. She was already envisioning Charlotte’s first birthday, picturing the little sister to her first-born son.

Her 20-week anatomy scan told a different story. It revealed Charlotte had a congenital diaphragmatic hernia — a hole in the diaphragm. Her abdominal organs had moved into her chest cavity and her lungs were undeveloped.

Charlotte’s best-case scenario would have been being placed on a ventilator, long-term feeding tube and ECMO — a form of life support. Charlotte’s most likely scenario was suffocating at birth.

Danielle reached out to a friend, an obstetrician, for a second opinion and advice. “Are you considering termination?” they asked.

As a mother and a nurse, Danielle determined what was in the best interest of her daughter’s life and chose to terminate the pregnancy.

“I felt like this was the kindest and most compassionate way to love her,” Danielle said.

With Indiana’s 22-week abortion ban in place at the time, Danielle found a medical facility to perform an abortion in Indianapolis within a week. She said one hospital told her she would be better off going to Chicago.

That same week, she went through a multi-step process which included taking Mifepristone and inserting laminaria, a type of seaweed that can be sterilized and rolled into a stick, to dilate the cervix.

She also picked out an urn for Charlotte. It now sits on her bedroom dresser next to a picture of Charlotte in her arms.

The dilation and evacuation procedure was performed at 21 weeks and 6 days of the pregnancy.

“Please tell me I’m not a monster.” Danielle asked the nurse on the labor and delivery floor. “No,” the nurse told her.

Danielle changed her specialty from cardiac catheterization to labor and delivery after Charlotte’s death. She wanted to be there for mothers in good times and bad, just as her nurse was for her.

She spent two and half years being a labor and delivery nurse. Now she has three boys: a six-year-old and one-year-old twins. She now works as a public health employee for the government.

She believes if an individual is not a stakeholder in the decision to have an abortion, then the person should not have a say in the decision.

Each of Charlotte’s 10 toes is etched forever on Danielle’s body, a footprint tattoo on her right wrist.

•••

Taylor, a 31-year-old pre-school teacher with two children already, got pregnant despite a hormonal intrauterine device.

An IUD is a form of birth control placed in the uterus by a healthcare provider. According to Planned Parenthood, IUDs are more than 99% effective. When one gets pregnant with a hormonal IUD, the hormone it releases can cause complications like an ectopic pregnancy.

Indiana state lawmakers and other states have falsely claimed IUDs and emergency contraceptives are ways to induce an abortion, but they’re not — they’re a form of prevention.

Pregnancy does not occur until the fertilized egg implants itself into the wall of the uterus, Bernard said. Contraceptives do not interfere with a fertilized egg that has already implanted.

It wasn’t the right time for Taylor to have a third child.

Being a mom to a newborn comes with hormonal shifts, sleepless nights, work schedule changes and finding and affording daycare. She was just a year into working at her current preschool job. She didn’t have the resources to be the mother she wanted, she said.

It was difficult to find a healthcare provider in Indiana to perform the abortion. She considered going to Illinois. One Indianapolis hospital eventually admitted her due to the risks posed to her pregnancy by pre-existing conditions — she had previously undergone brain surgery that left her prone to seizures.

Three months before Indiana’s abortion ban took effect, Taylor received an abortion six weeks into her pregnancy in May 2023.

She still remembers the pain of what felt like flesh ripped from the back of her abdominal wall.

After the abortion, Taylor was reminded of it almost daily — every time she taught her class filled with young children and helped take care of the babies.

She was punishing herself, she said — forcing herself to feel the guilt and pain she thought she should be feeling. She didn’t think she deserved mercy.

“I would remind myself, ‘Hey. You didn’t do that. You didn’t bring a kid into the world,’” Taylor said. “Do you want to do it again? Can you do it again?”

Whenever she would see children while out with her husband, they would talk about trying again.

One day at work Taylor covered lunch for a teacher in the infant room. She rocked a baby boy in her arms who was no more than six months old. He drank from a bottle, unable even to sit up on his own. Taylor realized she was relieved the baby wasn’t hers. It was cathartic.

“I wasn’t sitting there holding a baby, or pregnant with a baby, that I didn’t want and bringing it into the world feeling stressed,” she said. “And the guilt of trying to be a mom when I wasn’t ready to be a new mom again.”

She keeps an ultrasound picture and the hospital wristband she wore the day of the abortion in a wooden box her grandfather made her. It rests on her dresser in her bedroom.

•••

In states like Indiana, where traveling out of state to receive an abortion may be necessary, there are still barriers such as funding and transportation. There are factors such as time off work, childcare and financial burdens, too, Bernard said. Some people also may not have the resources to ease such barriers.

Nonprofit organizations like Midwest Access Coalition can help provide access to legal and safe abortions by providing clients with resources like accommodations, money for food or childcare and transportation.

Alison Dreith, director of strategic partnerships for Midwest Access Coalition, said those affected most by such restrictions are marginalized communities who don’t have the resources to obtain help out of state.

“People shouldn’t have to drive out of their own zip code to get essential time-sensitive healthcare,” Dreith said.

She added when abortion is left up to the states, it becomes politicized and no longer treated as healthcare.

But even before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, there were still gestational limits and waiting periods. Dreith emphasized reinstating Roe v. Wade wouldn’t be sufficient in ensuring equitable reproductive healthcare. Members of marginalized communities are disadvantaged by not having the resources to obtain legal abortions.

“Roe was the floor, not the ceiling,” Dreith said.

•••

The second time Sarah, now 46, visited a reproductive health clinic, she was a model living in Los Angeles.

Sarah began taking Accutane, an acne medication with noted health risks to pregnant mothers and fetuses, as instructed by her agent. She had one pimple.

The dermatologist who prescribed it told her not to get pregnant while on the drug and recommended terminating any pregnancy on Accutane, Sarah said.

When she learned she was pregnant, she had an abortion at a clinic. The pregnancy was no more than eight weeks old.

Her boyfriend at the time, who got her pregnant, was apathetic to her struggles. He blamed her for the abortion and blamed her for the pregnancy in the first place. He controlled her, berated her and belittled her. He pointed out body rolls when she wore swimsuits. He ignored her struggles with depression.

Only those closest to her know about this experience, and to this day, her parents still don’t.

Sarah retired from modeling at 21, moved back home with her parents in Kentucky and began taking classes at the University of Kentucky to pursue a communications degree. After spending two years in a short-lived marriage, she entered her junior year of college at 26.

A one-night stand that year became a second pregnancy that she was unprepared to carry out. She was broke, depressed and lived with her parents.

Before long, she started to experience morning sickness and couldn’t hide the pregnancy from her parents. One night, she walked up the stairs from her room in the basement to find her parents in the living room and told them.

“When is the due date?” her father asked.

“There won’t be one,” she said.

Around eight weeks into the pregnancy, she again went to the clinic for an abortion. This time she was with her mom.

After her second abortion, Sarah finished her degree and began seminary to become a reverend. She met Kyle, another seminary student, on his last day of seminary.

They began dating after her 30th birthday and fell for each other quickly. He was kind and compassionate. He treated her with respect, unlike her boyfriend in LA.

Around five months into their relationship, they took a trip together to Hilton Head in South Carolina. On the way home, Sarah began to sob in the passenger seat. She decided if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Kyle, she had to tell him about her abortions. Concerned, he pulled over at a gas station.

Tearfully, she confessed.

“I tell him, and he hugs me and tells me he loves me, and that was it,” Sarah said.

They were engaged on their six-month anniversary and married after a year. They’re still married today, and the daughter they had together is now 13.

Sarah said her third pregnancy was finally the right time.

“Life was the way it was supposed to be. I was married, we had jobs, we were happy,” she said. “We lived around the block from my parents. We had support.”

Sarah would not be the pastor, parent or person she is today if she didn’t get those two abortions, she said.

•••

Sarah uses her faith to support women’s rights and advocate for bodily autonomy. She attends protests and wears a stole she keeps in her car covered in buttons with phrases like “BANS OFF OUR BODIES” and “Believe survivors.”

Sarah said scripture has been taken out of context in a hurtful manner even though it states how Jesus did not judge and helped others in need. Specifically, abortion is never directly mentioned.

“It’s healthcare,” Sarah said. “Jesus was a healer.”

Over the last few years, she began writing poetry about motherhood, mental illness and grief. Some of her poetry revolves around her abortions and the life she built. One poem, called “Some Can Let It Go,” ends with a reflection on unwanted pregnancies — hers and others.

“I had choices.
I would not be who I am
If I had been forced
Into birthing/dying
And so I despair
Thinking of those who are
And those who shall be
Without choice”

•••

When the leaves start to change color, Danielle gets a pit in her stomach. A Facebook memory from five years ago reminds Danielle of a post she made Oct. 5, 2019, announcing her pregnancy. Four pumpkins of descending sizes sit on her front porch in the photo. The last and smallest pumpkin wore a pink bow on its stem for Charlotte. The post reads, “New pumpkin in the patch! Coming March 2020” — Danielle’s expected due date.

It was 47 days later when she had the abortion.

Around this time each year, Danielle usually takes out Charlotte Bear — a crocheted white stuffed bear she named after her daughter — from a basket in her closet. The basket, her “memory basket,” holds mementos from the days following her abortion.

A tiny bouquet of plastic flowers from her coworker when she felt she couldn’t keep anything alive. Photos of her ultrasounds, some of the only photos of Charlotte she has. Charlotte’s footprints on a small paper notecard, matching those on her wrist.

She slept with the bear nightly for at least a year after the abortion. Over time, she no longer needed Charlotte Bear’s company every night. But she still takes her to bed in the fall.

Danielle doesn’t often talk to Charlotte Bear, but sometimes, she says, “I wish you were my daughter.”

CORRECTION: Additions made in the editing process caused a previous version of this article to misstate Todd Rokita's accusations against Caitlin Bernard.

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