Oklahoma’s Abortion Ban Forced Woman to Spend Thousands to Travel to New Mexico for Life-Saving Care

But her situation was complicated by Oklahoma’s stringent abortion laws, which render the provision of abortion care a criminal offense except, supposedly, to save the life of the pregnant person. Despite Hoffman’s condition and a doctor telling her that her life was in jeopardy, she was still denied an emergency abortion. A nurse offered her a list of clinics outside Oklahoma to contact, and Hoffman says this nurse told her, “I didn’t become a nurse to have conversations like this.” (Worth noting: President Biden’s Health and Human Services Department actually determined in May that if hospitals, even in states that ban abortion, deny someone the procedure when their life is at risk, they’re in violation of federal law.)

Of Oklahoma’s six neighboring states, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri ban abortion. Abortion remains legal in Colorado, while Kansas bans abortion at 22 weeks. When Hoffman, 21 weeks pregnant, called a Kansas clinic to book an appointment, she learned the clinic was booked for weeks. Hoffman was eventually able to get an abortion in New Mexico… two weeks after learning her fetus had no chance of survival. The hospital told her they needed her medical records from Oklahoma, but her doctor there was prohibited from sharing them, leaving Hoffman—who is not a doctor—to try to explain her condition to the New Mexico hospitals. By this point, Hoffman was out of work (though she didn’t specify when she lost her job), and and forced to pay $6,000 in medical and travel-related bills for a life-saving procedure she couldn’t get in her home state.

“What happened to my daughter was a tragedy. But what happened to me was the fault of the state of Oklahoma,” Hoffman said. Throughout the process of seeking care, she also recounted struggling with anxiety about how she’d be perceived by others in her conservative state: “I thought everyone was going to think I was a murderer, even the doctors and nurses, because the way politicians talk about abortion is so hateful, like we’re only using it as birth control.”

Hoffman’s story illustrates what experts have long warned: Exceptions to save the pregnant person’s life are mostly theoretical, and can dangerously delay time-sensitive care as doctors consult lawyers. Last week, women in three states—including Oklahoma—joined a lawsuit challenging their states’ bans after they say they nearly died from being denied abortions. (One of the women, a Tennessee resident, was denied care even as her fetus’ organs were growing outside of itself.) “This was one of the hardest moments of my life,” Hoffman said. “And Oklahoma really kicked me when I was down.”