After a year of trying, Rachel Brown found out that she was pregnant. She might have been ecstatic… if she hadn’t been diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer the day before.
Brown’s choices were to either terminate her pregnancy and seek treatment or keep the baby and risk it being harmed by the cancer. Even worse, she could lose her own life and the ability to mother her two other children.
1 in 1000 women who get pregnant is faced with this heart-wrenching dilemma: struggling with the combined load of carrying a baby and fighting cancer. When a pregnant woman has cancer, 40% of the time, it is breast cancer. Other forms of cancer include blood cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, melanoma, brain cancer, and pancreatic cancer.
In some cases, the necessary drugs for treatment are toxic to a fetus. “In my view, the only medically acceptable option is termination of the pregnancy so that lifesaving treatment can be administered to the mother,” said Dr. Eric Winer.
After abortion was banned and medical abortion limited,
hospitals must deal with numerous complications: for one, oncologists could be tasked with removing cancers from pregnant women. “If a doctor can’t give a drug without fear of damaging a fetus, is that going to compromise outcomes?” Dr. Clifford Hudis asked. “It’s a whole new world.”
The overturning of Roe V. Wade increased in anti-abortion hospitals as well. When pregnant women face fatal cancers, being in a location with minimal aid nearby could cost them their lives. This results in concern from many people, wondering what will become of hospitals in states unable to perform abortions.
The HER2 cancer Brown was diagnosed with is easily treatable with trastuzumab, also known as Herceptin, but she couldn’t go through treatment while pregnant. If she waited a few months before treatment, the cancer would spread even further. Doctors suggested having a mastectomy and then chemotherapy, along with cancer drugs to help eradicate the tumor.
According to Brown, the doctors “made it clear that my life would be in danger if I kept my pregnancy because I wouldn’t be able to be treated until the second trimester.”
After excruciating analysis, Brown chose to have a medical abortion. She tearfully took the pills when she was six months and one day pregnant. She was certain that the baby would have been a girl, named Hope, and saved the ultrasound of her heartbeat.
The treatment was successful, but Brown faced many terrible decisions along the way. “I feel like it has taken a lot of courage to do what I did,” she said.
Brown’s choices were to either terminate her pregnancy and seek treatment or keep the baby and risk it being harmed by the cancer. Even worse, she could lose her own life and the ability to mother her two other children.
1 in 1000 women who get pregnant is faced with this heart-wrenching dilemma: struggling with the combined load of carrying a baby and fighting cancer. When a pregnant woman has cancer, 40% of the time, it is breast cancer. Other forms of cancer include blood cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, melanoma, brain cancer, and pancreatic cancer.
In some cases, the necessary drugs for treatment are toxic to a fetus. “In my view, the only medically acceptable option is termination of the pregnancy so that lifesaving treatment can be administered to the mother,” said Dr. Eric Winer.
After abortion was banned and medical abortion limited,
hospitals must deal with numerous complications: for one, oncologists could be tasked with removing cancers from pregnant women. “If a doctor can’t give a drug without fear of damaging a fetus, is that going to compromise outcomes?” Dr. Clifford Hudis asked. “It’s a whole new world.”
The overturning of Roe V. Wade increased in anti-abortion hospitals as well. When pregnant women face fatal cancers, being in a location with minimal aid nearby could cost them their lives. This results in concern from many people, wondering what will become of hospitals in states unable to perform abortions.
The HER2 cancer Brown was diagnosed with is easily treatable with trastuzumab, also known as Herceptin, but she couldn’t go through treatment while pregnant. If she waited a few months before treatment, the cancer would spread even further. Doctors suggested having a mastectomy and then chemotherapy, along with cancer drugs to help eradicate the tumor.
According to Brown, the doctors “made it clear that my life would be in danger if I kept my pregnancy because I wouldn’t be able to be treated until the second trimester.”
After excruciating analysis, Brown chose to have a medical abortion. She tearfully took the pills when she was six months and one day pregnant. She was certain that the baby would have been a girl, named Hope, and saved the ultrasound of her heartbeat.
The treatment was successful, but Brown faced many terrible decisions along the way. “I feel like it has taken a lot of courage to do what I did,” she said.
