Trump Aide Says ‘Bleeding Out’ Due to Abortion Bans Is Not Real. She Lived It: ‘I’m Right Here, Jerk’

Carmen Broesder was watching the presidential debate Tuesday night when she heard something that stopped her cold. As she processed the moment, her phone lit up with messages from friends.

"They said when they heard the words, the person they thought of was me," Broesder tells Rolling Stone. "I felt validated."

Vice President Kamala Harris had just destroyed Donald Trump on the topic of abortion by describing some of the terrifying realities for women seeking reproductive health care in states with new, draconian abortion bans. Harris was hitting back at Trump's suggestions people wanted Roe v. Wade overturned two years ago.

"This is what people wanted?" Harris asked incredulously on the debate stage. "Being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn't want that."

For Broesder, the "bleeding out" line was a visceral reminder of the 19-day miscarriage she suffered in December 2022 while living in Idaho, a state that began enforcing a near-total ban on abortion after Roe fell. Broesder, 37, says she begged in vain for care at three different emergency rooms and believes she nearly died during her nightmare. Harris' powerful response left her feeling "heard."

Then, just a day later, friends reached out again. This time, they were sharing a video that longtime Trump loyalist John McEntee posted on TikTok and Instagram . In a smug tone, the aide who acted as the head of White House personnel during Trump's last year in office – someone considered a top contender for powerful roles if there's a second Trump administration – scoffed at Harris' words.

"Can someone track down the women Kamala Harris says are bleeding out in parking lots because Roe v. Wade was overturned? Don't hold your breath," McEntee said as he dug into a platter of fried food while wearing a hoodie for his right-wing dating app, The Right Stuff. McEntee's clip garnered tens of thousands of likes.

As Broesder tells Rolling Stone, she found the video "disgusting" and knew she had to "calm down first" before stitching it into a response of her own that went much more viral . She was admittedly angry. "I was like, 'Are you serious? You can't find us? I've done all this work. You can google. Google is free,'" Broesder says. "It just shows his lack of care. He made that video to almost bait us. Like, you won't possibly have the bravery to speak up against men. It's just more dehumanization. They don't exist? No, I'm right here, jerk."

For Broesder, McEntee's post was offensive on so many levels. She had been heartbroken when she lost her pregnancy and still vividly recalls how one medical worker allegedly told her, "Don't come back until your pain or bleeding are worse than your worst possible moment." It wasn't until her fourth visit to an emergency room that she received a procedure to remove tissue stuck to her cervix after weeks of excruciating pain, ABC News previously reported. She tells Rolling Stone her sustained and severe blood loss caused erratic blood pressure and a stress response that led to a subsequent diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, a heart condition known AFib.

When her initial reaction to McEntee subsided, she was ready to respond. "I have to be calm and level-headed and speak with kindness, even with people who don't deserve it," she says. In her stitched TikTok, which clocked more than a million likes as of Friday morning, Broesder explained how she was turned away from the various emergency rooms and "continued to suffer exponentially."

"I blacked out in my hallway due to blood loss," she says in the post. "I developed a heart condition called AFib. It means my heart doesn't work right anymore, and it fucks up. So, if I get too excited, too hot, too much in pain, too traumatized, if somebody yells at me too much, my heart fucks up. So, I have to regulate for my heart to keep active, otherwise I could have a heart attack and die. I have to deal with these side effects for the rest of my life because of abortion laws. ... But yeah, women are bleeding out in parking lots. I actually have a pinned video of me saying they're going to just let me fucking bleed out here. ... But yeah, we exist."

Broesder, whose experience is cited in a high-profile lawsuit challenging abortion laws , knows she is far from alone. In the comments section of McEntee's post, that is clear. Countless women ratioed the post with an outpouring of similar stories.

"Here! I almost died in Cincinnati Ohio with an ectopic they wouldn't treat me for. I wasn't treated until 9wks3 days. I bled out for 78 days. My hemoglobin was dangerously low," a TikTok user named Missy wrote in one reply that garnered thousands of likes.

"Ectopic pregnancy survivor. Sat in the ER while my doctor called her attorney to find out if I could receive medicine or if they had to wait till I bled internally to help me," another TikTok user with the user name Lizzmarie wrote.

Others online said Harris' comments made them think of Jaci Statton, the Oklahoma woman who told NPR last year that she was denied a surgical abortion and instructed to go wait in her car after she started bleeding profusely with a non-viable pregnancy. Statton said staff at the Oklahoma hospital she visited told her, and her equally terrified husband, that they felt bad they had to turn her away. They allegedly admitted they felt thwarted by the state's near total abortion ban, considered one of the most stringent in the country.

"They were very sincere; they weren't trying to be mean," Statton, 27, told NPR. "They said, 'The best we can tell you to do is sit in the parking lot, and if anything else happens, we will be ready to help you. But we cannot touch you unless you are crashing in front of us, or your blood pressure goes so high that you are fixing to have a heart attack.'"

Broesder says she'll be dealing with the lasting effects of the heart damage she suffered for the rest of her life. "I have a daughter who just turned 3. I used to love roller coasters. My dream my whole life was to do fun things with my kids. Now I can watch her do the fun things, but I can't always participate. If my heart rate gets too high, I can black out," the mom, who has since started an Oregon-based nonprofit called Unity Harbour centered on access to reproductive health care, tells Rolling Stone. "This literally changed my plan for myself and my daughter."

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