Two Louisiana women denied miscarriage treatment reflect on their friendship and the importance of speaking out
Across the country, abortion bans like Louisiana’s have upended pregnancy care. Because the medications and surgical procedures used to treat miscarriages are also used in abortion care, many doctors have stopped offering this care to patients experiencing pregnancy loss, out of fear of legal repercussions.
After Kaitlyn Joshua, a mother from Baton Rouge, publicly shared her experience of being sent home from two hospital emergency rooms in the midst of a miscarriage, she was inundated with messages from other women with similar stories.
One of those messages came from Haleigh Meyers, a friend of Kaitlyn’s. “You texted me one day, and I know we kind of, like, randomly text each other, but this day was a little different,” Kaitlyn remembered. “You said, ‘I’m pretty sure I’m having a miscarriage, but I don’t know.’”
Like Kaitlyn, Haleigh went to the hospital. Like Kaitlyn, she felt insulted and dismissed by doctors. And like Kaitlyn, her experience left her feeling determined to speak out in hopes of preventing others from feeling the same sense of fear and loneliness while trying to obtain essential health care.
Kaitlyn and Haleigh reflected on their experiences, their friendship, and their hopes for the future in a conversation recorded by StoryCorps Studios as part of Abortion in America’s collection of interviews with people in Louisiana about the ways in which the state’s abortion ban has affected their lives. This project was produced in collaboration with Glamour and the Newcomb Institute at Tulane University.
What I would want other people to know is they’re definitely not alone. And speaking out sometimes does help other people … Just hearing somebody else’s story could help them, could close that little scar on your heart.
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