Patients with fatal fetal diagnoses fight abortion bans in their states

After battling years of infertility, Magon Hoffman and her husband found out they were pregnant with their second daughter in 2022. “We were over the moon,” she said.

But at her 19-week anatomy scan, which provides an assessment of fetal development, doctors found anencephaly, a fatal condition that affects the formation of the skull and brain. The condition usually results in the absence of part or all of the cerebrum that is responsible for thinking, vision, hearing, touch, and movement.  

“The doctor told us in clear, certain terms that she was not compatible with life and would never see the outside of a hospital,” Hoffman told Prism. Babies with the condition are either stillborn or die within a few hours or days of being born, leaving pregnant patients to decide if they want to terminate or continue the pregnancy.  

However, Oklahoma banned abortions with limited exceptions in 2022. Following the Supreme Court’s decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the state’s trigger law went into effect, resulting in one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the nation. The ban makes no exceptions for fatal fetal diagnoses, meaning Hoffman had only two choices: Carry the pregnancy to term or look outside of Oklahoma. 

“I would have to either stay in Oklahoma and carry her to term, and if she were to make it that long I would give birth to her here and [medical staff] would put her on ‘comfort care,’ and basically do what they could to make her comfortable while we watched her die,” Hoffman said. “The alternative was to leave the state.” 

Hoffman is one of more than 120,000 people in the U.S. who receive diagnoses of fetal abnormalities per year, with many of these diagnoses being fatal and only detectable during the second trimester. Currently, 28 states ban abortion based on gestational duration, mostly during the second trimester. Oklahoma is one of 11 states that have banned abortion without exceptions for cases such as Hoffman’s. While her story and others like it expose the “depravity of anti-abortion policies,” experts warn that even in states with so-called exceptions, anti-abortion policymakers have designed them “to be difficult if not outright impossible to use even for the few who qualify under their narrow limits.”

Hoffman is now suing her state and hopes that others in similar situations do the same. 

On their own 

Hoffman is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit recently filed by the legal advocacy organization the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) against the state of Oklahoma, challenging the state’s total abortion ban and ban on abortion over 20 weeks for patients with fatal fetal diagnoses.

After receiving her diagnosis at a clinic in Oklahoma City, Hoffman says she was “ghosted” by her medical provider, who offered her little help finding out-of-state care and didn’t return her phone calls until a week after her diagnosis. She finally spoke with the clinic’s head nurse, who sounded “incredibly remorseful,” Hoffman said. “She sounded like she was potentially even crying.” The nurse explained to Hoffman that their medical team had not provided care to anyone in her situation since the law had been overturned, and they were scrambling, “trying to figure out what they can say or can’t say, and what was going to get [them] in trouble,” Hoffman recalled. To her, this meant her family was on its own.

She called abortion clinics far and wide. One in Kansas had a two-week wait, bringing her too close to the state’s 22-week cut-off. Eventually, she found a clinic in New Mexico able to provide abortion care. Still, there were challenges. Hoffman’s Oklahoma medical provider refused to directly send her medical records to an out-of-state abortion provider, instead emailing them to Hoffman. She parsed the relevant information on her own, single-handedly coordinating logistics. 

“I had to look at my absolutely most devastating moments typed out in doctor code on paper, and it was very cold. It was kind of a gut punch,” Hoffman said. While her husband and mother offered support, she ultimately found comfort in leading the process. “It was just so clear that this was a path I was going to have to walk alone.” 

The journey to New Mexico took nearly 10 hours by car and cost her over $3,000. Upon returning to Oklahoma, Hoffman learned that she lost her job due to the time she took off after receiving her diagnosis. 

Casting a wider net 

In the months following her abortion, Hoffman was plunged into a period of mourning. “I couldn’t even say the word ‘baby’ at this time or go into a Target that had a baby section. I would just break down and have to leave,” she said. Still, she decided she wanted to challenge Oklahoma’s abortion bans.

While data shows that most people seeking abortion care are Black and Latinx people who do not fall under an exception and about 75% of these abortion patients are low-income, in their 20s, and already parents, stories like Hoffman’s add to a powerful chorus of everyday people fighting abortion bans.  

Hoffman first learned about the Center for Reproductive Rights while looking for advocacy efforts to plug into. The organization had previously sued the state, resulting in a 2023 Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that “the state constitution protects the right to abortion in life-threatening situations.” Meetra Mehdizadeh, CRR’s senior attorney for U.S. litigation, told Prism that “life-threatening situations” does not mean a patient has to be on death’s door. 

The 2023 ruling helped pave the way for CRR’s latest lawsuit with Hoffman, which challenges both Oklahoma’s total abortion ban and ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy. CRR strategically chose to cast a wider net with its latest lawsuit “to vindicate the rights of pregnant people who receive fatal fetal diagnoses,” according to Mehdizadeh.  

“We want to make sure people are actually able to provide this care and that there isn’t still a ban in effect preventing provision of care,” Mehdizadeh said. “So that’s why we’re challenging both, to make sure that if we win that physicians would actually be able to provide this care.” 

Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Dr. Elizabeth Pinard, an Oklahoma City-based OB-GYN, and Sheena Hamlin, an Oklahoma woman who was also denied abortion care after receiving a fatal fetal diagnosis. 

Pinard chose to join the suit because of how the state’s anti-abortion laws impact her ability to provide care to patients. 

“I have dedicated my life to caring for women from all across our state, including those facing fatal fetal conditions. Doctors routinely provide care according to what our patients want for themselves and their families, but Oklahoma’s abortion bans have left me feeling helpless,” Pinard said in a press release.

As abortion bans have taken hold nationwide, there are more headlines about pregnant people learning of fetal abnormalities later in pregnancy and then being denied abortion care. These kinds of cases are proving to be powerful in challenging anti-abortion laws in states with near-total or total bans. 

“I don’t need this lawsuit to prove that what happened to me was wrong,” Hoffman said. “I know with every fiber of my being that what the state of Oklahoma did to me was wrong.”

In 2023, CRR filed cases on behalf of women denied abortion care in Texas, Idaho, and Tennessee. While the first two cases were unsuccessful, CRR’s case in Tennessee is ongoing, with the next briefing taking place this month. The lawsuit continues alongside a bill that could limit the rights of Tennesseans to sue the state for unconstitutional laws by allowing the attorney general’s office to “immediately appeal from lower courts—where judges are typically elected by the people—to appeals courts where judges are usually political appointees,” Nashville Public Radio reported.

In Oklahoma, Hoffman’s case has just begun. On Oct. 28, state officials filed a motion to have the case dismissed. Now, Hoffman, her co-plaintiffs, and their legal team will have to fight for the case to be heard, and still, it could be years before a final ruling is made. 

For CRR’s legal team, this kind of pushback isn’t new; they faced similar efforts to dismiss their case in Tennessee. 

Hoffman says she’s in it for the long haul and “nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something” has become her mantra. More recently, she launched “Letters to Our Daughters,” a podcast that amplifies abortion stories and post-Roe realities from people across the U.S. The goal of her broader advocacy work is fighting for a better future for her daughters and other women and pregnant people in Oklahoma.

“I don’t need this lawsuit to prove that what happened to me was wrong,” Hoffman said. “I know with every fiber of my being that what the state of Oklahoma did to me was wrong.” 

Editorial Team:
Tina Vasquez, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Lauren Hardie, Copy Editor