How US abortion bans put women at risk: ‘My wife almost bled out in our toilet – it can’t be the same for my daughter’
Warning: This story contains details of a miscarriage which some people may find distressing.
“We broke Roe vs Wade,” president-elect Donald Trump said earlier this year, referring to the Supreme Court ruling in 2022 which stripped millions of American women of the legal right to abortion.
Some 36 days later, Ryan Hamilton, a radio host from Texas, found his wife passed out “in a huge pool of blood” on their toilet floor, their dead baby still inside her after she was denied abortion care.
“What I want is for people to understand that this is really happening and that abortion bans affect incomplete miscarriages, women like my wife,” Mr Hamilton told Sky News.
“Women have literally died and the thing I want the most is to make sure that my daughter’s future doesn’t include her bleeding out on a bathroom floor like her mum almost did.”
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Trump called out over ‘abortion lies’
‘She was tortured for four days by the state of Texas’
In 2021 Texas introduced stringent laws on abortion, banning it after five weeks of pregnancy.
But after Roe vs Wade was overturned the next year, it went a step further and banned abortion in any circumstance except to save a woman’s life or prevent “substantial impairment of a major bodily function”.
Although Texas allows this exception, doctors and women argued in court last year that the state’s law is so restrictive and vaguely worded that physicians are afraid of providing abortions for fear they could face potential criminal charges.
Mr Hamilton claims the law’s vagueness is what caused his wife to almost die from her miscarriage.
“There’s no clarification as to how close to dead a woman has to be for them to legally perform the abortion care that she needs,” he said.
With his first daughter, a one-year-old, cooing in the background, Mr Hamilton described how his wife, 37, was 13 weeks pregnant when she miscarried while carrying their second child.
When they first realised something was wrong, the couple went to a medical centre near their home in a rural area of Texas, where the baby was found to have no heartbeat.
Mr Hamilton’s wife, who has asked to remain anonymous, was prescribed the drug misoprostol, more commonly known as an abortion pill.
That was a Thursday, Mr Hamilton recalls, but as it was too late in the day to get hold of the pill, his wife had to spend a “torturous” night with their dead baby still in her womb.
When morning came, Mr Hamilton went to the pharmacy and got the pill. But after his wife took the first dose, the couple called the medical centre to report something was “really wrong” as she was bleeding a lot.
They asked for an alternative to the pill but the medic on the phone said they should try again with the second dose and monitor the colour of the blood.
Mr Hamilton said: “They asked me what colour the blood was, they said it needs to be brown blood… I said ‘it’s bright red’ and they said ‘that’s not right’.
“So in the middle of losing our baby… We are being instructed on focusing on the colour of the blood in the toilet.”
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Why could abortion pill be pulled in US?
After a night when Mr Hamilton’s wife experienced something akin to early labour, the situation hadn’t changed, so the couple went back to the centre in the hope of getting more support.
The doctor on shift, however, told them that “considering the current stance” he wouldn’t prescribe any more misoprostol – and also had no alternative to offer.
“We stood in the parking lot with our then nine-month-old daughter in the truck, trying to figure out what we were going to do because the risk of sepsis could have killed my wife… if we left our dead baby in there,” Mr Hamilton said.
They then decided to go to another hospital about an hour away. His wife was subjected to “more probing and prodding only to discover what we already knew, that our baby didn’t have a heartbeat”.
He said she was “bleeding profusely at this point… bleeding non-stop, bleeding through post-birth pads”.
Mr Hamilton said the doctors “disappeared for hours” only to come back and refuse to carry out dilation and curettage (D&C), a surgical procedure to remove the baby. The couple were sent home with a third dose of misoprostol instead.
Mr Hamilton said they were essentially saying “she’s not close enough to dead to perform this procedure as she has to reach the life of the mother exception under Texas law”.
“It’s nightmare stuff and my poor wife was tortured for four days by the state of Texas,” he said.
Sky News has approached Texas state authorities for comment.
According to online abortion service Women on Web, medical abortion is “effective and safe” up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. After that, the medicine will still be effective but the risk of complications increases, as does the chance of having to see a medical professional afterwards.
‘I thought she was going to die’
Mr Hamilton described how after taking the third dose of the abortion pill, his wife woke up on Sunday to even more bleeding.
“I wrapped her in the heating blanket, and she was cold, clammy cold. I propped her head up on the pillow and it was the first time I thought she was going to die.”
While checking on their daughter, he got a missed call from his wife, so he ran over and found she had “fallen off the toilet” and was lying in a “huge pool of blood”.
He picked her up and “put her unconscious body in the truck”, strapped their daughter in and drove to a third hospital in the hope of getting help.
As “she was close enough to dead”, she got life-saving care, regained consciousness and her body gradually recovered.
According to analysis shared with NBC, the number of women who died while pregnant, during labour or soon after giving birth skyrocketed following Texas’s five-week ban in 2021.
From 2019 to 2022, the rate of maternal mortality cases in Texas rose by 56%, compared with just 11% nationwide during the same time period, according to an analysis of federal public health data by the Gender Equity Policy Institute.
“We will carry that torturous experience with us for the rest of our lives,” Mr Hamilton said.
What could happen to abortion rights under second Trump administration?
It is hard to say what Trump’s second administration, due to start once he is inaugurated on 20 January, could mean for the future of abortion rights in the US as the president-elect has flip-flopped on the issue.
As president, he backed a House bill which would’ve banned abortion in the whole country after 20 weeks.
In March, he suggested he would support a nationwide ban on abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation.
But in the final stages of his latest campaign, which saw his Republican Party take control of both Houses, the 78-year-old said he would not sign a federal ban on abortion and would leave it to the states to decide what policies to adopt.
At the end of August, Mr Trump, whose wife Melania recently published a memoir where she came out in support of abortion rights, told Sky News’ US partner network NBC he believed the six-week abortion ban adopted by his home state of Florida was “too short”.
But as he faced fierce backlash from anti-abortion advocates, Mr Trump came out a day later to say he would be voting “no” on an unsuccessful ballot measure which would have expanded abortion access until foetal viability, around the 24th week of pregnancy.
Read more:
‘My baby lived for just 93 minutes’
US Supreme Court preserves women’s access to abortion pill
Nancy Northup, CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said his re-election is a “deadly threat” to reproductive health.
She said that as a result of Roe vs Wade being overturned, abortion is nearly or completely banned in 17 of the 50 US states.
As the results of the presidential election became clear, there were reports of Americans stockpiling abortion pills, while Plan C, which promotes access to abortion medication online, said searches to its homepage following the landslide vote for Mr Trump surged from 500 to 80,000 in a day.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Ms Northup said: “The unnecessary and cruel harm caused by the first Trump administration includes a reproductive healthcare crisis in vast swathes of the United States that has led to the deaths of numerous women who are likely the tip of the iceberg.
“A second Trump administration will compound these harms with new, potentially far worse ones.
“It will seek to stop the availability of medication abortion by mail, which has been a lifeline in post-Roe America,” she said.
There are also fears it will try to gag organisations based both in and outside of the US from advocating for abortion rights and providing care abroad, even with their non-US funds.
“Without Trump overturning Roe vs Wade then none of this starts to happen,” Mr Hamilton said, referring to the women who died or, like his wife, narrowly escaped death as a result of complications from being denied the care they needed.
“The priority is not my wife’s health, the priority becomes the legality of the procedure.”
At the heart of anti-abortionists’ campaigning is the belief in the sanctity of human life.
“In opposing abortion, we acknowledge the humanity of the child in the womb which fuels our effort to protect the pre-born child’s life,” Americans United for Life says.
Mr Trump’s campaign team has been approached for comment.
Donald Trump’s eldest son has said his father may walk away from the Ukraine peace process, claiming the issue is not a priority for Americans, and signalling Europe needs a better plan.
In a wide-ranging discussion with Sky’s lead world news presenter Yalda Hakim at Doha Forum 2025, Donald Trump Jr addressed issues including the US administration’s recent diplomatic efforts around the world.
He was speaking in his capacity as a business leader, setting out his agenda for “America first” investments in defence technology and artificial intelligence (AI), drawing a direct line between global stability and economic prosperity.
Ukraine war latest – follow live updates
Donald Trump meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington earlier this year. Pic: Reuters
When asked directly if he believed the US president would walk away from Ukraine, he answered: “I think he may, what’s good about my father and what’s unique about my father is you don’t know what he’s going to do. He’s unpredictable.”
President Trump has led renewed efforts for a ceasefire deal with Russia in recent months.
Drawing a parallel with his father’s current “war” on drug cartels, Donald Trump Jr described gangs bringing illegal drugs into America as a “far greater clear and present danger to the US than anything [going on] in the Ukraine or Russia”.
While he said he did not believe Ukraine would be “abandoned”, he said: “The American public doesn’t have the appetite [for endless wars and further funding of Ukraine’s military efforts].”
Describing Ukraine as “a far more corrupt country than Russia”, he characterised Ukrainian President Zelenskyy as “one of the great marketeers of all time”, who he said had become “a borderline deity, especially to the left”.
He went on to describe President Trump’s approach as “common sense”.
China rivalry was the focus, but Musk got a mention
In a country and at a conference which is friendly, even admiring of the Trump administration, Don Jr was in his element.
He’s here in his capacity as a business leader, promoting his venture, 1789 Capital which claims to be focused on “America First” investments.
But he wasn’t shy about discussing his father’s foreign policy achievements, boasting that Donald Trump had resolved seven or eight wars – conflicts that most ordinary Americans were unaware of.
His pitch is bullish and direct – the current US administration is projecting strength globally, stopping wars and creating investment opportunities which serves the American economy. It’s the MAGA mentality for the global audience.
It’s clear that the rivalry with China is their biggest focus, especially finding ways to combat their dominance over critical minerals.
“America can no longer just sit there and hope that China is going to be a good actor… I think the rest of the world understands that they want America to be at the forefront of all of that.”
When I asked him about recent efforts by President Trump to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, he responded forcefully. “We want peace, we want to stop the death.”
But he went on to say that Europe needed to shoulder the burden and currently they have no plan.
As he sat on the stage in Qatar, the country which has been at the centre of the ceasefire efforts for Gaza, he expressed hope that peace would prevail, but balanced expectations America would fund its re-construction. This would have to be a global effort.
“If there’s one thing my father is, it’s a builder… I think he can be the greatest construction manager in the history of the world, but no one in America wants to bear the entire responsibility of that.”
And, away from international diplomatic efforts, he was happy to announce a breakthrough closer to home.
The “bromance” with Elon Musk and President Trump is back on – calling the entrepreneur a “generational talent, a generational level of genius”.
‘Bromance’ back on
He also confirmed that Tesla billionaire Elon Musk was “100% back in the fold”, after previously appearing to fall out with the president.
Earlier this year, Donald Trump Jr’s investment company, 1789 Capital, heavily invested in some of Musk’s companies, including SpaceX.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in May. Pic: AP
Directly comparing President Trump with Musk, he said: “Imagine dealing with one Donald Trump – now I have to deal with two.
“They’re very similar that way, so it created some headaches… but the reality is they’re both very much aligned, they’re on message with what we want to do with our country. What we want to do with freedom of speech.”
He went on: “Elon did incredible things for Twitter, really allowed the democratisation of truth and freedom and free speech to occur. That’s something that is a true threat in America right now.”
He also praised Musk as “changing the face of free speech, science and technology”, adding, “we have to protect our geniuses”.
When asked whether Mr Trump would stand for a third term, he joked that he could be “just trolling” those on the left.
He went on, “He’s the most unpredictable person, probably in the history of politics. Which is why he’s able to get something done. We’ll see.”
US
Jeffrey Epstein’s most lucrative currency was people – six years after his death, he continues to haunt those who knew him
Framed photos with presidents, princes and even the pope adorned the many homes of Jeffrey Epstein.
This article contains images and language that some readers may find disturbing.
The disgraced New York financier’s most lucrative currency was people. He made a career out of connections with world leaders in politics, business titans and science’s most lauded brains.
The man formerly known as Prince Andrew, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, described Epstein‘s appeal in his infamous TV interview: “He had the most extraordinary ability to bring extraordinary people together and that’s the bit that I remember, going to the dinner parties where you would meet academics, politicians, people from the United Nations. It was a cosmopolitan group of what I would describe as US eminence.”
His network was not just US-based but the global elite – among them hedge fund owners, bankers and hoteliers.
But as more and more new documents and photos are made public, we can build up an intimate portrait of a man who kept so much private.
Read more: Dozens more images of Epstein’s island released
Another man once called a prince, but of darkness this time, Peter Mandelson, described his “best pal” as a “prolific networker”. Epstein’s friends crossed political parties – Republican and Democratic – and continents.
Epstein and Mandelson. Pic: US House Oversight Committee
Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion was just a seven-minute drive from Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago. In 2002, Mr Trump told New York Magazine: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
They are said to have fallen out while competing to purchase a mansion in 2004.
Trump and Epstein at a party together in 1992. Pic: NBC News
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell meeting Pope John Paul II
The release of thousands of Epstein’s personal emails shows he had had plenty of world leaders in his inbox.
The former prime minister of Norway and former president of the Maldives sought his advice on politics and finance respectively.
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Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s private island
An enigma
Epstein’s emails are short, often abrupt and riddled with spelling mistakes. The impression he wanted to give: he was a busy man, an enigma. You were lucky to be getting a reply.
He cared about appearances – his own and of the women he abused. He dated many models, including a former Miss Sweden. He followed a strict diet to keep lean and insisted the women in his life did the same.
A drawing in Epstein’s 50th birthday book
His now notorious 50th birthday book is packed full of candid snaps, some featured here, that flaunt his lavish lifestyle. It is also brazen in its relishing of Epstein’s proclivity for young women. Images of scantily clad women are included in photos and doodles.
The anecdotes from his wealthy, powerful friends are often smutty or innuendo-led. “It’s no secret that Jeffrey appreciates beautiful women. But not many people know that he can create them out of thin air,” reads one.
Massages were entry route to abuse
Epstein’s black book of contacts had lengthy lists of women lined up for “massages” in Florida, California, New Mexico, New York, London, Paris and his island.
At least 152 women are named in it with phone numbers – they were available on speed dial.
The premise of a massage was often his entry route to abuse. The massages were scheduled, part of his daily routine. Whether on a private jet or his private island, he acted with impunity for far too long.
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Inside Epstein’s island: What do new images tell us?
Epstein did not show remorse for his crimes
Multiple women went to the police to report his actions over the years. But the only jail time he was ever sentenced to was in 2008 after a controversial deal where he pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail, but only served 13 and negotiated the ability to leave the jail six days a week for up to 12 hours a day for work.
Despite becoming a registered sex offender in 2008, he was far from a social pariah. Nor did he show remorse for his crimes.
Even a decade after his conviction, he was still mocking sexual abuse. He wrote in a message to a friend in 2018, “so many guys caught in the me too, reaching out to me. Asking when does the madness stop. Funny,” and then that “breast cancer was easier to cure than the me too movement”.
A picture of Jeffrey Epstein from his 50th birthday book
‘Epstein claimed if girls had started menstruating they were of age to have sex’
Virginia Giuffre revealed in her memoir that Epstein would say that criminalising sex with teenage girls was a cultural aberration. He would point to different US states having different ages of consent – in Florida it was 18. He claimed if girls had started menstruating they were biologically of age to have sex.
Documents released by the House Oversight Committee reveal he paid to “clean up” what came up about him on Google after his conviction. On 11 December 2010 he bemoaned that despite forking out thousands, “the google page is not good” in an email.
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The Epstein files released last month: Sky’s US correspondent Mark Stone explains
‘An extraordinary volume’ of naked photos of young girls
On 6 July 2019, Epstein was arrested on federal charges related to sex trafficking after his private jet flew into the US from Paris.
“An extraordinary volume” of naked photos of young girls were found in his New York town house. Authorities also found a safe containing 48 loose diamonds, $70,000 (£52,000) in cash and three passports belonging to the sex offender. The expired Austrian passport had a photo of Epstein, but a different name and an address in Saudi Arabia.
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On 10 August 2019, Epstein was found dead in his New York prison cell while awaiting trial. Forty-eight hours before he died he signed a will which put his assets in a trust, the beneficiaries of which remain private.
Epstein’s most vocal victim, Ms Giuffre, who took her own life this year, closes her memoir Nobody’s Girl saying: “Epstein is dead but the attitude that allowed him to do what he did, it’s alive and well.”
Six years after his death, Epstein continues to haunt those who knew him. Some may be scared – for their reputation, careers and for what more could still come out.
Americans will be able to visit national parks for free on Donald Trump’s birthday next year, but will no longer be able to do so on Martin Luther King Jr Day or Juneteenth.
The Department of the Interior has released a list of what it calls “resident-only patriotic fee-free days” for next year.
Mr Trump‘s birthday, which falls on the Flag Day national holiday, has been added to the list, as has the Fourth of July weekend and President Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday.
However, Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth have been removed. Juneteenth was recognised in 2021 under Joe Biden’s administration and commemorates the end of slavery in the US.
Also removed are the anniversary of the Great American Outdoors Act in August and the National Public Lands Day in September.
“President Trump’s leadership always puts American families first,” the US interior secretary Doug Burgum said.
“These policies ensure that US taxpayers, who already support the National Park System, continue to enjoy affordable access, while international visitors contribute their fair share to maintaining and improving our parks for future generations.”
Read more from Sky News:
White House: Europe ‘unrecognisable in 20 years or less’
Trump awarded FIFA peace prize at World Cup draw
The department said it was also introducing “America-first entry free policies”, which means US residents will continue to “enjoy affordable pricing” while international visitors “will pay a higher rate to help support the care and maintenance of America’s parks”.
It said the annual pass will cost $80 (£60) for US residents and $250 (£187) for nonresidents, with nonresidents without an annual pass paying a $100 (£75) per person fee to enter 11 of the most visited national parks, in addition to the standard entrance fee.
The US Institute of Peace. Pic: AP
Trump renames US Institute of Peace after himself
The decision to make his birthday a ‘free’ day comes after Mr Trump’s name was added to the sign on the headquarters building of the United States Institute of Peace in Washington DC.
The State Department shared a photo of the building’s new facade and called Mr Trump “the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history”.
He has also unsuccessfully put himself forward for the Nobel Peace Prize, sought to put his name on the planned NFL stadium in Washington DC, and had a new children’s savings programme named after him.
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