“Miranda’s prognosis was as clear today as when she first heard it, four months ago: a zero percent chance of viability, for either twin. But Texas’ new abortion laws, which make no exception for lethal fetal anomalies, required Miranda to carry this pregnancy through to the bitter end.”  

After the overturn of Roe v. Wade and a subsequent near-total ban on abortion in Texas, people in situations like Miranda’s are left with less options, less professional health care guidance, and more what-ifs. Living in rural northeast Texas left Miranda surrounded by abortion bans in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and although she feared the risks of a complicated pregnancy with no hope for healthy babies, she also feared circumventing the law and fleeing the state. There were no good options.

31 weeks along, she went into labor. Three hours away from the hospital that could best care for her and her twins, she was then airlifted to Dallas, TX. And four hours following a hectic C-section while fighting for consciousness, her newborns’ hearts stopped beating. “Helios and Perseus Langley died in the arms of the mother who loved them as best she could, as long as she could. A tidal wave of grief washed over Miranda, and this time, she let it take her under.”  

For The Texas Tribune, story by Eleanor Klibanoff.