A Kentucky lawmaker had a nonviable pregnancy. State abortion bans made her loss more agonizing
Published in Women
“I can’t be out shaking people’s hands at an event and then start bleeding,” she remembers thinking. “That’s not what I want for myself.”
She and Spencer chose a D&C.
“The certainty of knowing when that nightmarish experience was going to end, to have a day and time in mind, that gave me more peace,” she said.
“To feel like I had some control in a situation that was very much out of my control.”
Abortion, at that time, was still legal in Kentucky and Ohio.
Burke had received most of her IVF care at the Institute for Reproductive Health in Cincinnati, so that’s where she scheduled the procedure.
She had the D&C April 12, 2022.
On May 17, she won her primary. She was sworn in as a state representative in January 2023.
Burke’s next IVF attempt had to be timed in concert with her work as a new lawmaker. If she got pregnant mid-summer, she could be present for her first regular session, January to March 2023, which would wrap up in time for her due date.
But the medical landscape for her second egg retrieval — and the full range of care she could need should something go wrong — looked very different than the first a few months earlier.
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