Just over a year ago, Kimberly and David Manzano were eagerly trying for their first child. After they suffered a miscarriage in November of 2022, Kimberly Manzano found out she was pregnant just two months later. The couple was elated.
But 10 weeks into the pregnancy, they heard news from a fetal specialist that rocked their world — the baby had several abnormalities.
The couple, who live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and are devout Christians, didn’t lose hope, however. They sought out second and third opinions with pediatric surgeons and maternal fetal medicine physicians in Texas. After a fetal MRI revealed several more severe complications to their baby, including a leakage of spinal fluid due to the spinal cord not having fused, a missing kidney, a defect to the baby’s abdominal wall, and a lack of genitalia, the Manzanos knew they were looking at a fatal pregnancy. Both Kimberly and her husband were heartbroken and devastated.
“We literally walked into our worst nightmare,” said Kimberly Manzano, 34.
But despite doctors telling the Manzanos that the baby “would never see the outside of the hospital,” they were unable to advise her medically on termination options, Kimberly Manzano recounted. That’s because Texas, like several other states with abortion bans, does not have exceptions for lethal abnormalities. Currently in the state of Texas, abortion is illegal. The state has a pre-Roe abortion ban, a six-week abortion ban, and a trigger ban (a ban on abortion known as The Human Life Protection Act that took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade), with exceptions for the life and health of the mother.
“My hands are tied,” Kimberly Manzano recalled her doctor saying. “If it was my son, I would want him to be with God now sooner than later.” The nurse at her doctor’s office then sent Kimberly Manzano the name of an abortion clinic in New Mexico over email, leaving it to her to send her medical records to the…
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