Haylie Grammer was never one to speak of politics, but after an experience with her own abortion, felt she had to speak out about women’s reproductive rights.  Grammer took to Facebook on Monday, October 12th, 2020 to give a reminder of how politics are used in our country by powerful white men to control women’s bodies, and that everything “isn’t always what it seems on the surface.”

According to The Atlantic, Americans are uncertain of the beliefs of the new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who replaced the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, because there is in fact, “abundant evidence indicates that Barrett personally opposes abortion.”  RELATED: I Had A Happy Abortion And Feel Zero Guilt Or Shame About It There are many reasons why abortion is supported by women in the U.S., and in Grammer’s case, she did it because she had to — had she gone full-term, she might have not survived herself. With the election only a week away, Grammer posted on Facebook to inform others of the realities of her abortion and the restriction that states have made in order to make abortion more difficult, after seeing Senator Gary Peters abortion story.  Grammer’s story starts four-and-a-half years ago during the birth of her firstborn Embree Eleanor Grammer. According to Grammer, Embree was born “via c-section on April 25, 2016. She weighed 4lbs 4oz. She was only 25 weeks gestation. She lived for approximately 20-30 minutes.” Grammer explains that she had to abort Embree because of a tumor the size of a volleyball that was invading her body both internally and externally.  Five weeks before Embree’s birth, Grammer and her husband found out about the tumor, which was why Haylie was the same size as a pregnant woman 36 weeks along though she was only actually at 20 weeks.  During those last five weeks of Embree’s life, the Grammer’s tried to stay hopeful, but as the tumor increased in size, they knew their precious baby wasn’t going to make it. “We had a choice to make,” wrote Grammar. “The state of Texas allows an abortion a time period after 20 weeks if the pregnancy is life-threatening to the mother or if the fetus has ‘abnormalities.’ We qualified for this.” Grammer explained that she has always been pro-choice, but that she personally never imagined choosing to have an abortion herself. However, that wasn’t the case as Embree developed Hydrops which made Haylie at risk for the syndrome as well. “Not only was I starting to develop the beginnings of mirror syndrome, but we were 2 weeks away from 27 weeks. This was important because at 27 weeks, I would no longer be able to deliver Embree in Texas via c-section. Why? Because according to the law, by choosing to deliver Embree this early, I would be having an abortion.” RELATED: 18 Celebrities Who Had Abortions—And Aren’t Ashamed After the doctors said there was no hope in saving Embree, it meant that Grammer was choosing to have an abortion, even though she physically had to get Embree out of her for her own health. Texas is considered to be “pro-life” in their view of Roe, so unfortunately for Grammer’s safety, it comes with many restrictions to prevent abortions from happening.  “Here is the thing about abortion legislation…. it doesn’t differentiate between what we were going through and what the ‘pro-life’ groups think they are preventing.” The restrictions were very belittling to Haylie because she had to sign a paper that she was “choosing” to abort Embree as well as given a pamphlet on the consequences of abortion.  “If you consider yourself ‘pro-life’ you are probably thinking something like, ‘yes but your situation was different. This isn’t what I’m fighting against.’ … But the actual definition of abortion is ’the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus.’ So while YOU might not consider what we went through to be an ‘abortion,’ it was. I had an abortion. I had a late-term abortion.” Grammer said that she brought this up because this is what lawmakers mean when they fight to end abortion. In many cases, however, abortion is “women and families who are devastated that they are in a situation in which they have to decide whether to let a child suffer in the womb, or end their suffering.” Even though Grammer “chose” to abort her baby, or at least that’s what it looks like on paperwork, Embree was alive when she was delivered, so that Haylee got to hold her Embree for the 20-30 minutes of her life.  Grammer’s post has more than 31,000 comments, more than 235,000 shares, and 120,000 likes on Facebook, and the numbers are still rising, causing people to rethink if they are supporting women’s rights or allowing men to control women’s reproductive rights.  RELATED: What It’s Like To Have An Abortion One Month After Turning 13 Megan Hatch is a writer at YourTango who covers health and wellness, love and relationships, and pop culture.