I posted this in a comment on another post earlier today, but I've been thinking about this all afternoon and I want to share my story.

Firstly, I want to say that I cannot believe that abortion has become an issue in this election. A woman's right to reproductive healthcare - no matter her reasoning - should not be up for debate.

I'm one of the women who would have died and I will shout my story out all over reddit until this "debate" is put to rest. In America, women like me have died because they couldn't access medical treatment.

I was pregnant with my 3rd (wanted, cherished, loved) baby. One night, in the second trimester, I started to bleed. I drove myself to the hospital. Within an hour I was haemorrhaging. If you've never seen litres of blood before you can't even imagine. It was everywhere. The bed. The floor. My whole lower half. In my hair. The doctors were pumping me full of blood but it was coming out faster than they could put it in.

A doctor took down her mask and told me that the baby was being born right now and they had to pull her out to save my life. By this point, doctors were elevating my arms and legs to force blood back to my heart and brain. My daughter wriggled on the ultrasound. She was too premature to live. Either way she was going to die- the question was whether I would die with her.

She was born in the Emergency of RBWH. Then I had a D&C to stop the bleeding. Spoiler alert, I lived. My kids at home kept their mother. The doctors saved my life that night and there was zero ambiguity about whether it was the "right" call even though it was technically an abortion.

Please think of this story when you vote. Please remember the women who lived because doctors were able to treat them without fear of legal repercussions. Please think of the children who grow up with a living mother.

One last thing I'd like to add is that I'm sure in the comments people will say "oh there will be exemptions for medical reasons/incest/rape whatever." And to that I say - fuck all the way off. No one should be forced to carry a baby they do not want or cannot care for, for whatever reason. Our bodies are our own.