It was a moment of raw humanity in Washington amid federal policy discussions that were largely devoid of it.
During a week when Republicans, newly in control of the House of Representatives, discussed whether pharmacy workers should be allowed to refuse to fill abortion medication prescriptions due to religious objections, the Florida congresswoman Frederica Wilson rose to break a silence she had held.
At 80 years old, she was finally ready to tell publicly her own abortion story.
Speaking on the House floor, she said: “All I ever wanted since I was a little girl was plenty of children that I could love and cuddle and raise to greatness.
“After getting married in 1968, I would soon become a mother-to-be. It was the joy of my life, I was ecstatic. My husband was walking on the clouds … [We] would touch my stomach all the time just to feel the movement of our baby boy and the glory of a life growing inside of me,” she told those in the chamber.
“Then at seven months the baby stopped moving. He was soon pronounced dead – right inside of my womb – and the doctor was prohibited by law from inducing labor,” she explained.
Today, I relived one of the most painful times in my life on the House floor. I shared my experience of being forced to carry my dead baby. Prohibited by law to induce labor, I carried my deceased child inside me for two months and almost died. We can't go back. pic.twitter.com/emuWzQDgWX
— Rep. Frederica Wilson (@RepWilson) January 11, 2023
Her experience took place five years before the federal right to abortion was secured through the US supreme court’s Roe v Wade ruling in January 1973 – a decision dismantled by the conservative-controlled court last June.
During her evocative speech on Wednesday, Wilson said she had previously been loth to speak of her personal experiences as part of the abortion rights debate, not wanting “to relive the most painful time in my entire life”.
But she said a statistic about Florida made her want to come forward.
The research she appeared to be citing showed that, if abortion ended up being banned nationwide, Florida would have the worst maternal death rate in the country, alongside Georgia, increasing by 29%.
In line with the national trend, a disproportionate number of those women will be Black and Hispanic – about 39% nationally, the same research suggests. Wilson is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and represents a district including part of Miami. Florida is debating whether to tighten further its current 15-week limit for abortion.
During her rousing speech, Wilson talked about the pain, grief and terror that came alongside waiting to deliver a stillborn child at a time when she couldn’t receive an abortion.
“I cried every night and all day,” said the congresswoman. “My little body was wretched with pain, weakness and frailty. I lost 50 pounds. I would crawl into a fetal position in my mother’s lap most of the day, and my husband’s most of the night.”
She went on to detail her experience delivering at eight and a half months, and the moments of panic in between, where she was warned that housing a disintegrating fetal corpse inside her body could lead to any manner of complications, such as toxic shock syndrome.
“After three days I left the maternity ward in a wheelchair, empty-handed, no baby, no nothing. I watched all of the mothers and families celebrate their newborns while I grieved and cried,” said Wilson.
“We had a small graveside burial for baby boy Wilson and doctors were so worried that I would also have to have a graveside burial,” she said.
I was wheeled out of the maternity ward empty-handed and overcome with grief as I watched other moms celebrate their newborns.
— Rep. Frederica Wilson (@RepWilson) January 11, 2023
Abortions don't just apply to women who've decided they are not ready to have a child. It affects women who are faced with medical emergencies. pic.twitter.com/n6n1w81xgm
Then addressing Republican lawmakers who aspire to legislate against reproductive rights, she added: “Do not take us back to the days before Roe v Wade.”
House Republicans have almost no hope of getting any radical anti-abortion legislation past the Democratic-controlled US Senate, but that is unlikely to dampen their posturing.
Meanwhile, in the 49 years since Roe v Wade, the Democrats never codified the rights afforded by the case in federal legislation. The fall of Roe means the power to protect abortion rights or pass bans or hefty restrictions has returned to the individual states.
The Democratic Women’s Caucus, a group of members of Congress, tweeted: “Our Caucus dressed in white today to show our collective resistance to the extreme MAGA Republicans’ anti-abortion agenda. We will always stand up for reproductive freedom & access to abortion care.”
Our Caucus dressed in white today to show our collective resistance to the extreme MAGA Republicans' anti-abortion agenda.
— Democratic Women's Caucus (@DemWomenCaucus) January 11, 2023
We will always stand up for reproductive freedom & access to abortion care. pic.twitter.com/zVx0kDIsYj
Wilson is more widely known outside congressional circles for her vivid suits and large, brightly-colored and bedazzled cowboy hats, but on Wednesday her charisma and flamboyance were channeled into bitter testimony and a plea to the right.
She ended her speech by lamenting the many – mostly male – politicians within the Republican party’s dogged attempts to undo abortion protections for women in America.
We cannot put childbearing women at risk because of a group of ludicrous, hateful, majority-male Congress who have never experienced pregnancy or childbirth but take pride in monitoring women's vaginas. How dare you! pic.twitter.com/xUKrxvvbzX
— Rep. Frederica Wilson (@RepWilson) January 11, 2023
“You cannot put young, child-bearing women at risk because of the group of ludicrous, hateful majority-male congressmen who have no idea what it feels like to even bear the pain of childbirth or even have the courage to carry a child for nine months, who take pride in monitoring women’s vaginas. How dare you?” she asked.
She concluded: “May God help you find it in your heart to hear my story.”
