‘UNIFORMLY LETHAL’

Louisiana Woman Says She Was Denied Abortion for Fetus With Top of Skull Missing

Louisiana resident Nancy Davis said that after an abnormal ultrasound, her baby was diagnosed with acrania, a rare and fatal condition.

Days after the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the state’s near-total abortion ban would remain in effect, a pregnant woman in Baton Rouge said she may be forced to carry her baby to term, despite a rare congenital disorder described by health experts as “uniformly lethal” to the fetus. After an abnormal ultrasound at 10 weeks, Nancy Davis’ baby was diagnosed with acrania, she told WAFB on Tuesday. “They noticed the top of the baby’s head was missing and the skull was missing—the top of the skull was missing,” she explained. Approximately 75 percent of babies born with acrania are stillbirths; the remaining newborns survive for only minutes or hours. Denied an abortion under Louisiana Department of health guidelines and now 13 weeks along, Davis must either cross state lines to obtain an abortion—maybe Florida or South Carolina, she said—or give birth to the baby. “It’s hard knowing that ... you know I’m carrying it to bury it...you know what I’m saying,” she said.