One in every ten pregnancies in the US ends in a miscarriage, a common medical event for which there are safe and effective treatments should there be complications. But over the past two years, having a miscarriage in many states has become far more dangerous, thanks in part to the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade.

Thirteen states have passed total abortion bans. Four others ban abortion after six weeks—a de facto ban. These laws have resulted in a rash of horror stories—not about the anticipated illegal backroom abortion deaths, but about ordinary women having ordinary but occasionally life-threatening pregnancy complications, while hospitals and doctors refuse to treat them for fear of being prosecuted.

Among the legion of GOP anti-abortion politicians in the US who’ve helped create this carnage, there is one you might expect to have some sympathy for the suffering of these women: Vice presidential candidate and Ohio Senator JD Vance. On the surface, the politician who denigrated Democrats as the party of “childless cat ladies” and suggested that “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female, in theory,” was to take care of children, would not be an obvious softie for the victims of policies that have left women bleeding out in hospital restrooms. And yet, he might understand the situation better than many of his Republican colleagues.