A month after graduating from college, Kailee and Cade were married in Marble Falls, Texas. Both are proud native Texans — Kailee’s family has lived there for generations, and Cade’s ancestors are among Texas’ “Old Three Hundred,” the original families who joined Stephen Austin in settling the area in 1800.
At the time, the DeSpains were both passionately anti-abortionists.
“I was just your quintessential pro-life Texan,” Kailee, 29, told CNN in a recent interview.
“I was raised in central Texas by extremely Republican parents and grandparents,” Cade, 31, said. “One hundred percent pro-life.”
A year into their marriage, Kailee miscarried at 16 weeks and was hospitalized for serious complications, including blood clots and infection. It was one of three miscarriages she had in the early years of her marriage.
“It made me realize that pregnancy can be dangerous,” she said. “It made me think of my little sisters and I wanted them to have a choice if they ever had to go through something like this.”
Last September, when a restrictive anti-abortion law went into effect in Texas, Kailee asked on Facebook that people contact their elected representatives to protect abortion rights.
In November, Kailee and Cade were overjoyed when they found out she was pregnant. Full of hope, they posted ultrasound photos and a gender-revealing video of a cannon shooting blue confetti. They named their baby boy Finley.
Then, about three months later, they learned Finley had heart, lung, brain, kidney and birth defects and would either be stillborn or die within minutes of birth. Carrying it to birth put Kailee at high risk for serious pregnancy complications, including blood clots, pre-eclampsia and cancer.
Even so, they could not get an abortion in Texas and fled to New Mexico.
“I’ve never felt more betrayed by a place I was once so proud to be from,” Kailee said through tears.
“How could you be so cruel as to pass a law that you know will harm women and that you know will cause babies to be born in pain?” she added. “How is that humane? How does it save anyone?”
CNN emailed Texas lawmakers who authored or supported the state’s anti-abortion laws. None of them responded to CNN’s questions.
A grim prognosis for their baby
When Kailee and Cade found out she was pregnant, they were desperately hoping for a “sticky baby” — a pregnancy that would stick — after her three miscarriages.
But after multiple ultrasounds, doctors’ prognosis was grim: his heart, lung, kidney and brain problems were severe, and his genetic disorder, called triploidy, meant he had an extra set of chromosomes. Doctors said Finley would either die before birth, or if she did go full-term, she would die within minutes or at most an hour after birth.
One of the doctors told them, “Some of these things could be fixed, but all of this together — this can’t be fixed,” Kailee recalled.
She says the doctor told them that before Texas’ six-week abortion ban went into effect in September of last year, he would have advised abortion as “the safest course for you [and] the most humane course of action for him.”
But the doctor said she couldn’t provide them with an abortion in Texas. He said the only option to get one was to travel out of state.
Danger to Kailee’s life
Getting pregnant with Finley could have put Caylee’s life in danger.
She has two blood clotting disorders, which put her at greater risk of dangerous blood clots during pregnancy. In addition, mothers of triploid babies are more likely to develop preeclampsia, a potentially fatal pregnancy disorder. There was also an increased risk of a cancer-related placental abnormality.
Kailee said she considered risking her life to complete Finley.
“I [wanted] to say goodbye,” he said. “I [wanted] a chance to keep him.”
But then he thought about how Finley would suffer as he struggled to breathe.
“He’s going to drown, he’s going to die, and I’m going to see him do it,” she said.
For Cade, there was only one choice: There was no point in risking his wife’s life to have a baby that was sure to die quickly.
Cade told Kailee “I’ll support you in whatever decision you make, but I really don’t want to lose you both,” Kailee recalled.
The couple opted for an abortion, driving 10 hours to a clinic in New Mexico. The procedure and trip cost $3,500. They had hoped their insurance would cover the procedure, but Texas law severely limits abortion coverage, and the clinic told them their insurance company refused to pay.
The DeSpains didn’t have enough money — Kailee said she was on a salary at her job because she took too many sick days — so Cade asked a relative he describes as “the epitome of Trump fanboy” to give them the $3,500. The relative relented when Cade said that without the abortion, he could end up a widower in his 30s.
Cade said he didn’t like asking for the money, but “my job as a husband is to protect and love my wife. If I’m not fighting to keep her here, then I’ve failed.”
Kailee miscarried in March when she was 19 weeks pregnant.
“I’m still so angry and hurt”
While lawmakers did not respond to CNN’s questions about Kailee’s case, the president of Texas Right to Life did.
John Seago said that “Texas law is very clear about the circumstances under which an abortion could be performed” and “what happened in [Kailee] and her doctors response was a complete misrepresentation of the law. And this should never have happened.”
But Katie Keith, director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at Georgetown University Law Center, said Texas’ abortion laws — one that took effect last year and another that took effect last month — are not at all vague and are “designed to be intentionally vague and broad.” The most recent law, for example, says that an abortion can be performed if the mother “has a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or resulting from a pregnancy that puts the woman at risk of death or seriously injures a important physical function”.
“They don’t exactly specify the circumstances in which an abortion can be done,” Keith said.
Kailee said her doctors told her they could only perform an abortion if she was in immediate danger of dying — essentially if she was “”dying on the table.”
If a doctor is found to be breaking the law, the penalties can be severe: heavy fines, loss of medical license and possible life imprisonment.
In addition, citizens can file lawsuits against doctors they believe have performed illegal abortions, and if they win, they can receive a $10,000 reward. If the citizen is wrong and the doctor wins the lawsuit, the doctor must pay his own legal fees, as Texas law specifically prohibits doctors from recovering fees from plaintiffs.
“To face the possibility of being a felon and facing life in prison for just trying to take care of patients is horrific and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about leaving the state,” said Dr. Leah Tatum. a representative of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists based in Austin, Texas, who has treated patients in similar situations to Kailee’s since Texas’ anti-abortion laws were passed.
The Texas law that took effect last year banned most abortions with the onset of a fetal heartbeat, which can occur as early as six weeks into pregnancy and before many people know they are pregnant. It was one of the first and most restrictive abortion laws. Laws banning abortion or severely restricting the procedure have gone into effect in about a dozen states since the US Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion on June 24.
Kailee says the last time she saw her obstetrician, he advised her not to get pregnant in Texas.
“He said that’s not safe,” Kailee recalled. “He said, I want you to look at me. I want you to understand that if you get pregnant in Texas and if you have complications, I can’t intervene until I prove you’re going to die.” ”
The DeSpains say they are thinking about leaving Texas, but it would be difficult to leave their jobs and families behind.
Kailee said they’re sharing their story in hopes of raising awareness so “stories like mine can really change the minds of voters.”
“I’m still so angry and hurt about it I can barely see straight,” she wrote on Facebook the day after the abortion. “Finley and I were just collateral damage in a much bigger picture. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the thought process of lawmakers who would rather have a full-term baby die of suffocation than allow a mother to make a decision which spares her. child this pain.”
CNN’s Nadia Kounang and John Bonifield contributed to this report.
