Elisabeth Weber, a 31-year-old mother of three, has revealed the harrowing ordeal of being forced to carry a non-viable pregnancy for weeks due to South Carolina’s strict abortion laws, describing the experience as making her “womb feel like a tomb.”
The traumatic episode began on March 27 when Weber, during a routine nine-week prenatal checkup, was told her fetus had stopped developing three weeks earlier with no detectable heartbeat. Despite the devastating news, doctors informed her they couldn’t perform a dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure immediately due to the state’s “heartbeat bill,” which bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy except in narrowly defined medical emergencies.
“I was vomiting constantly from severe pregnancy sickness, yet my body didn’t recognize the pregnancy had ended,” Weber told reporters, referring to her hyperemesis gravidarum condition. “They sent me home to wait for natural miscarriage, watching for signs of hemorrhage or sepsis – the only conditions that would qualify me for immediate care.”
The family had already named the baby Lorenzo Thomas Weber (“Enzo”), making the bureaucratic limbo particularly cruel. Weber’s emotional TikTok video pleading for help went viral, showing her distraught in her car: “My baby is dead inside me, and the law says I must wait.”
After developing an infection days later, Weber was still denied the procedure at her local hospital. A patient advocate eventually helped her transfer facilities, where she finally received treatment – only to be traumatized again when her medical paperwork classified it as an “abortion.”
“This reopened wounds from losing my son to SIDS in 2018,” said Weber, whose husband Thomas suffered Crohn’s disease flare-ups from the stress. “We couldn’t work, couldn’t grieve properly – just trapped in this nightmare.”
Now recovering physically, Weber is sharing her story to highlight what she calls the “hidden cruelty” of abortion bans. “These laws aren’t protecting lives – they’re endangering women and preventing humane medical care,” she said.
Medical ethicists warn Weber’s case exposes critical flaws in post-Roe America, where vague exceptions for medical emergencies create dangerous delays. OB-GYN Dr. Lisa Harris of the University of Michigan notes, “Laws written by politicians, not doctors, force women to deteriorate before receiving standard care.”
As Weber finally mourns “little Enzo,” her story has reignited national debate about reproductive rights ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, with advocates using her experience to push for legislative reforms in restrictive states.
