Woman in Alabama Forced to Travel for Emergency Abortion With Life-Threatening Pregnancy Condition
Over the summer, a 24-year-old woman named Tamara Costa and her husband, Caleb, were thrilled to learn they were pregnant with their second child. But at the end of her first trimester, an ultrasound revealed her fetus didn't have a skull and the fetus' organs had grown outside of its body, according to The Meteor, which first reported on the couple's harrowing story. Despite this, Costa was denied an abortion, and her OG-GYN told her there weren't "a lot of resources" available to her in their home state of Alabama. Instead, Costa's OB-GYN gave her a Post-it with a phone number and the words "Planned Parenthood Chicago," and Costa says she didn't see her doctor again. The couple was ultimately forced to travel 600 miles for an emergency abortion in Chicago, where they received even more devastating news.
Costa's story is a result of Alabama’s criminal abortion ban, which threatens doctors with 99 years in prison, as well as the Alabama attorney general, Steve Marshall, who has threatened abortion funds and anyone who helps someone legally travel out-of-state for abortion care with criminal charges.
To reach Chicago, Costa and Caleb maxed out a credit card to pay for flights, lodging, food, a rental car, and child care for their toddler. In the week leading up to Costa’s out-of-state appointment, her condition continued to worsen, but her doctors in Alabama were unable to see her. In Chicago, when the Planned Parenthood OB-GYN on duty performed a routine pre-procedure ultrasound, they found Costa was also suffering from a molar pregnancy: a rare but deadly condition in which the placenta invades other organs or even spreads to a woman's muscles. If untreated, the condition can develop into cancer or cause heart attacks and multiple organ failure.
"No one in her care up until this point had even mentioned the word molar pregnancy to her,” the Planned Parenthood OB-GYN who treated Costa told The Meteor. “I was very, very angry and very, very shocked.” As Costa's case shows, in addition to blocking access to abortion, abortion bans can also cut patients off from the full range of sometimes life-saving reproductive health care when doctors live in fear of providing basic health services.
The Planned Parenthood clinic referred Costa to a nearby hospital—where doctors immediately performed the abortion—because the clinic couldn't offer a blood transfusion in the event of an emergency. “Honestly, if she were delayed any further, I think she would have had a much worse outcome,” the Planned Parenthood OB-GYN said. She also told the outlet that, with today's ultrasound technology, it's much easier to diagnose a molar pregnancy, which is why Costa's case "should have never gotten that far.”
In 2023, an Oklahoma woman named Jaci Statton was also denied an emergency abortion for her molar pregnancy. One hospital instructed her to wait in the parking lot until she was "crashing" before they could treat her. Statton eventually traveled to Kansas for care, and later had to undergo surgery to remove cancerous tissue that had developed as a result of her molar pregnancy and her delayed access to abortion.
About half of all states, including Alabama, enforce total or near-total abortion bans. But abortion is even further restricted in Alabama thanks to Marshall’s threats, made in September 2022 and again in August 2023, to slap anyone who helps someone travel for abortion care with charges of “criminal conspiracy.” Marshall's words target both doctors and abortion funds. Costa and her partner didn't know about out-of-state abortion funds, they told The Meteor, and because abortion funds in Alabama couldn't help them, the couple shouldered the massive travel costs on their own.
In July 2023, the Yellowhammer Fund, an Alabama-based reproductive justice group, and West Alabama Women’s Center (WAWC) filed a joint lawsuit against Marshall, represented by the Lawyering Project and ACLU of Alabama. A judge is expected to rule on the case this year. “It’s not hyperbole—it’s terrifying to be pregnant in this state,” Jenice Fountain, executive director of Yellowhammer, told Jezebel in August. “And they’re no longer just trying to ban abortion—they’re looking for any way possible to stop people from getting the care they need.” Fountain added that due to the high costs of abortion-related travel, and also the high costs of being forced to give birth and parent, Alabama's ban is financially setting people "back for a long, long time."
Robin Marty, executive director of the WAWC, told The Meteor that Alabama’s laws are aimed at “completely and utterly isolating the person who is pregnant, because if you cut them off from information and any sort of assistance, then you have essentially isolated her and forced her to do what you want. And let’s be honest, that’s what domestic abusers do: isolate and then abuse and force them into what you want.” She said the laws and threat of criminal charges have “destroyed the doctor-patient relationship,” and “destroyed the confidence in the medical system at all.”
Costa told The Meteor that she and her family are still trying “to heal the best way that we can.” Abortion laws aren’t “a Democrat or Republican thing,” she said. “It was human rights. It was about my health.”