Allie with her daughter Adalie and son Archie
I reported on the breaking news of the shocking last minute cancellation of a potentially landmark trial on the state’s abortion ban, here. Now, the lead plaintiff Allie Phillips tells her courageous story.
“After I had to flee to New York City for an abortion that saved my life, I was dealing with a lot of depression and anger. I had just lost my much -wanted baby daughter that my husband, Bryan and I had named Miley Rose.
We got the shattering news during my 20 week sonogram that Miley only had half a heart and that her brain, kidneys and bladder had not developed properly. She had a condition called semilobar holoprosencephaly and that she was ‘incompatible with life.
In other words, she would not be able to survive outside my womb and could actually die any day inside me. If she died then I would be at high risk of a deadly sepsis infection developing inside me.
It would be impossible under Tennessee’s total abortion ban for me to have received an abortion in Tennessee until that infection spread throughout my body and threatened my life.
I just couldn’t wait for that to happen. I already had a 6 year-old daughter, Adalie, to raise. She needed me to live and be her mom.
Byran and I had to scramble to raise the money to fly to NYC, including from caring people who heard me share my story on TikTok.
When I got home I had anger about a lot of different things. Anger feeling like my body had failed me. Anger that I had to leave my state to get an abortion that saved my life. I had gotten the devastating news at the NYC clinic that Miley Rose had already died inside me by the time I got there.
My abortion had to be started immediately since an infection could begin at any moment.
I was angry at Donald Trump for his Supreme Court picks. I was angry at the Supreme Court for its Dobbs decision which overturned Roe V Wade. I was angry at the Tennessee General Assembly for its ‘trigger’ abortion ban, which had immediately gone into effect after Roe was overturned.
I was pissed that lawmakers - mostly men - had the ability to legislate on women’s access to healthcare. People who never have to experience a pregnancy and would never have to decide whether I could risk letting this pregnancy kill me or luck of the draw, survive….
WHY DID REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS GET TO DECIDE IF I COULD LIVE OR DIE?
It was anger that these lawmakers could sit up there at the Capitol and vote yes or no on whether women get to live or not.
It was anger that the world continued to move forward while I just felt that I had lost everything.
I wondered how in the world I could make a difference. I felt powerless.
But then about a month after the abortion I got a message on Instagram from the Center For Reproductive Rights. Would I join a lawsuit against the state of Tennessee for enacting its extreme abortion ban that had no exceptions for rape, incest or even the health of the mother.
Here’s what the ban said: “abortion is illegal from fertilization except to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman".
The lawsuit would fight to add clearly stated medical exceptions to the law, including for pregnant women like me, who carried babies with fatal fetal anomalies (which meant babies that could not live after birth.)
After speaking to a lawyer at the Center, it was like a light bulb moment for me. I said yes to joining the lawsuit, quicker than I’ve ever said yes to anything.
How can you say no to changing people’s lives? To having an opportunity to stop these tragic events from happening to other women? I would not be doing myself or Miley justice, if I didn’t say yes.
It was about protecting the people of my state, my neighbors, my friends and potentially myself if I ever decided to get pregnant again.
The lawsuit was filed in Sept 2023 and was finally going to a jury trial on Monday, April 27 2026. We had waited three long years for the people of Tennessee to hear my testimony and the testimony of 7 other women also harmed by the abortion ban.
Then I got the news this past Thursday, just a day and a half business days before the trial was finally supposed to begin, that it had been canceled.
I was in disbelief when I got the email. So frustrated and so confused. I reread the same sentence 5 times. Like wait, what do you mean that the trial was canceled?”
Editor’s Note: To delay the trial, possibly for months, Tennessee’s Republican Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, used a weeks old law HB1971, passed by the Republican -controlled Tennessee legislature, which prevents Tennesseans from suing over any state law that harms them, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights lawyer on the case, Nicolas Kabat.
TENNESSEE REPUBLICANS ARE TRYING TO SILENCE US
Tennessee’s attorney general and the Republican controlled General Assembly “are trying to silence me and the other women in our lawsuit. They are trying to take away the power that we have, which is our stories.
I would have testified about how I would have risked my future fertility and my life if I had stayed pregnant in Tennessee.
That’s because the state’s abortion ban wouldn’t have allowed a doctor to terminate my pregnancy until I was at risk of one of my major bodily functions suffering irreversible damage.
The Republican Attorney General and state lawmakers didn’t want us to get our stories of how the abortion ban threatened our lives out there.
We’re appealing. We don’t know how it will take but even if it’s five years, we will have our day in court. I’m not going anywhere.
I also decided to run for the general Assembly as a Democrat to flip my state District 75 Blue. I ran in the 2024 election and got 45% of the vote but I’m optimistic that with the shift in the mood of the country, I could beat the Republican incumbent this November.
I first decided to run for office in 2023 as another way to fight against Republicans who don’t understand anything about women’s bodies but nevertheless are legislating on them.
I decided that no one would fight for my daughter and my family like I would and that’s why I’m now running for a seat in the state legislature again.
I want to fight hard for working families in Tennessee . Families that are struggling to afford housing, healthcare and childcare. Now, I have a one year year old son, Archie, as well to fight for.
Families are the backbone of what keeps this state and this country running and they are being left behind.
I feel that it is my purpose to get up into that State House and pass ‘Miley’s Law’ which will provide an exception to Tennessee’s abortion ban for pregnant women who are carrying babies with fatal fetal anomalies, like I was.
Ultimately my big goal is to get rid of the abortion ban altogether. Restricting healthcare access to anyone is unacceptable. But here in Tennessee if I could get Miley’s law passed, a crumb is a big win.
One of the key reasons I decided to run for office again was that a woman came up to me in Target one day and told me that she hadn’t taken my campaign sign out of her yard, from my first run for office.
She told me that I was the last person who had given her hope and the sign reminded her that she still has hope.
I didn’t want to take hope away from her and a lot of other people who had supported me. So I’m taking on a lot of burden to give other people, but it’s worth it.
And it’s the same for this lawsuit.
By putting my name and my face out there and eventually going to trial and giving my testimony, that’s giving people hope.
That’s letting people see that they are not alone. There is somebody out there fighting for them. “
To support Allie’s campaign to flip a Red seat, Blue in the Republican-controlled Tennessee General Assembly, click here.
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