For women, this election is literally a matter of life and death

This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 24 episode of “Morning Joe.”

With less than two weeks until Election Day, a new Instagram account called “Abortion in America” is sharing women’s harrowing stories about how strict abortion laws have personally affected them and their families. 

One of those women is Deborah Dorbert, a mother from Lakeland, Florida, whose video has already been viewed more than 50,000 times. The Dorbert family’s story was featured in The Washington Post in May, in a piece titled “The short life of Baby Milo.” 

Dorbert shared how she was denied the health care she desperately needed after learning her baby had a rare and lethal condition called Potter syndrome. Florida’s abortion ban prevented doctors from following the Dorberts’ wishes to terminate the pregnancy and, for three months, Deborah was forced to carry their second son to term and prepare for his short life. 

As the Post reported:

The day before Milo was born, the Dorberts sat down with their son Kaiden to explain that the baby’s body had stopped working and that he would not come home. Instead, someday, they told Kaiden, they would all meet as angels. The 4-year-old burst into tears, telling them that he did not want to be an angel.

Less than two hours after Deborah gave birth, a doctor declared Milo dead.The trauma that Deborah, her son, her husband, their friends and their neighbors went through is completely unnecessary. And it’s a direct result of Donald Trump’s Supreme Court ripping away 50 years of precedent and putting millions of women at risk. 

As important as other issues involving Trump are — his fascist tendencies, his cozying up to dictators, his reported obsession with Hitler, what he has said about our veterans, and what he wants to do with the military to get revenge on his political adversaries — the threat he poses to women cannot be overlooked.

What voters must know right now before they cast their ballot on Election Day is this: His policies are killing us. Trump is putting women at risk. He is slashing our health care. He is making us afraid to have babies. Women across the country have already died because of these strict bans. 

I understand people are busy and those just tapping in may not be able to comprehend how serious this situation is, but that is what is playing out across America. And we could be heading in a direction where more women are forced to suffer. That’s where we are going if Trump gets re-elected. I just hope we don’t find that out the hard way.