Emily Waldorf left Arkansas at 10:30 p.m. As she lay in the back seat of the ambulance, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was doing something wrong.
She repeatedly fell asleep on the stretcher. Paramedics watched over her as they knitted a blue baby blanket. Almost four hours later, Waldorf, who was 17 weeks pregnant at the time, woke up at 2 a.m. to a bump in Stateline Road. She finally crossed the state line and arrived in Kansas City.
She remembers being taken to a hospital room and seeing women enter wearing surgical bonnets and green scrubs. I remember him saying, “We’ve been waiting for you, and we’re so glad you made it safely.”
“I was like, ‘Oh my god, you’re going to help me,'” Waldorf says. “It felt like I was literally crossing the line of freedom.”
Five days earlier, Waldorf had been diagnosed with cervical incompetence and PPROM, a condition in which the amniotic membrane (the “water”) ruptures before the 37th week of pregnancy. Women with PPROM have a significantly increased risk of illness, sepsis, or death. I was told that I would soon miscarry.
But under Arkansas’ near-total abortion ban, which went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, Waldorf says she was at a loss at her local hospital. In Arkansas, any intervention to end a pregnancy is legally considered an abortion, according to the state registry. Abortion is only permitted if necessary to “protect the life” of the patient in the event of a medical emergency. Her doctors said she had expelled a blood clot “the size of a tennis ball,” but they could not intervene unless she was in imminent danger of death or until the baby’s heartbeat had stopped.
“I kept being told, ‘You’re not sick enough,'” she says. “The more time passed, the more scared I became.”
Maternal mortality rates are rising in the United States, and there is evidence that abortion bans are associated with increased maternal deaths during pregnancy or within the first year of pregnancy, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health. Arkansas has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation.
Waldorf’s sister called the office of Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to ask for intervention, but to no avail. So she sought legal representation. She then tried to arrange for a medical helicopter (estimated at $25,000), so the family settled on a $5,000 “non-emergency” ambulance to transport her out of state.
Waldorf, along with five other patients and one doctor, is currently calling for a complete repeal of Arkansas’ abortion ban. In January, Amplify Legal, America’s abortion litigation arm, filed Waldorf v. Arkansas. The plaintiffs argue that the near-total abortion ban denies patients life-saving medical care and their right to the “enjoyment and protection of life and liberty” under the state constitution.
“Governor Sanders looks forward to defending Arkansas’ pro-life laws in court,” Sam Dubke, communications director in Governor Sanders’ office, said in a statement to USA TODAY.
In addition to a strong pro-life stance on abortion, Sanders has overseen increased spending on maternal and child health, youth services and foster care placements. The advocacy group Americans United for Life includes these programs in its rankings of states based on the “Protecting Life from Pregnancy to Natural Death” law.
“Arkansas has been named the most pro-life state in the country for six consecutive years,” Dubke wrote.
“I don’t want anyone else to go through that.”
Like Waldorf, Teresa Vann was excited that her child would have a sibling, but she didn’t think she was the kind of person who would seek an abortion. She dreamed of growing her family and eventually wanted to have four children. But when, at 20 weeks, she received the devastating news that her fetus would not survive outside the womb, she had to wait for the baby’s heartbeat to stop and continue the non-viable pregnancy. Doctors told her that if she intervened, she could face a $100,000 fine and 10 years in prison.
“I didn’t understand what was going on…I was really distraught over losing my daughter,” she says. This was her third pregnancy, but she had already suffered a miscarriage during her second pregnancy due to a car accident.
At 25 weeks, her placenta had shifted over her cervix, increasing the risk of bleeding and a dangerous birth. That’s when she started telling her friends. She didn’t want anyone to know how her pregnancy was going, not knowing the grief she was already going through.
When the baby’s heartbeat stopped at 27 weeks, doctors said the risk of bleeding was too high to give birth at a local hospital, so she had to travel three hours to a hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, which was better staffed and had a larger blood bank. The daughter they named Ciel was stillborn. Since then, she says, the grieving process has been “a roller coaster.”
Ms. Vann joined Mr. Waldorf’s lawsuit against the state.
“I don’t think anyone should have to be on the brink of death to receive compassionate care,” she says. “I love my community. What I went through was really traumatic and I don’t want anyone else to go through that.”
Doctors and patients were left confused and stranded
Some of Ms. Waldorf’s friends had difficulty believing that Arkansas’ abortion ban was interfering with her care. Even in the hospital, in a state of pain, confusion, and overwhelming grief, Waldorf couldn’t figure it out either. She says she wasn’t seeking an elective abortion, just seeking treatment.
“No one knows that medical emergencies sometimes require abortion,” Waldorf says. After hearing her story, many of her pro-life friends changed their views on abortion laws.
Van’s community was also shocked, but largely supportive. She was part of a group protesting the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, but didn’t yet understand the scope of the near-total abortion ban until she was affected.
Among other claims, the lawsuit filed in January argues that the Arkansas constitutional guarantee of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” should cover a pregnant woman’s right to avoid unnecessary suffering, disability, or death if her pregnancy is unsuccessful.
“I felt very isolated,” Waldorf says. “I felt more like a liability than a patient. I felt very alone and abandoned by the medical system…but when I got out of that…I realized I was abandoned not only by the medical team, but by the state as well.”
Molly Duane, director of litigation at Amplify Legal, said the ambiguity about what constitutes a medical emergency is what makes doctors afraid to take action.
Although Arkansas law exempts patients from criminal prosecution, doctors who perform abortions can go to prison. That’s true in most states that ban abortion, but according to the Reproductive Rights Center, lawmakers in at least 10 states have proposed legislation that would allow authorities to charge people with murder with murder starting in 2025. As of 2026, none of these laws have been passed.
Dr. Chad B. Taylor, the obstetrician-gynecologist involved in the Amplify Legal case, says the “vagueness of Arkansas’ abortion ban” has “limited the types of pregnancies that can be aborted,” often increasing the risk to patients, according to the complaint reviewed by USA TODAY.
In one case, he observed a hospital’s cardiology team discussing with a pregnant patient “how high the risk of death would have to be to meet the medical emergency exception.” 30 percent? 10 percent? They weren’t sure. In another case, a patient diagnosed with breast cancer learned she was pregnant when she went to have a port inserted for chemotherapy. Her medical team paused treatment while trying to determine whether it was legal to treat her cancer during her pregnancy, which would likely cause a miscarriage. She died before receiving treatment.
“We don’t want doctors to think, ‘Is this illegal? Is what I’m trying to do the right thing for the patient?'” Duane says. “That’s the situation we’re in.”
Since the lawsuit was filed, two additional patients have joined the lawsuit. One woman was refused an abortion due to an ectopic pregnancy, and the other sought an elective abortion.
“What happened to me is not unusual,” Vann says. “It literally could happen to your mom, your sister, your friend, anyone.”
