In the years since
Roe was reversed, Americans have come to understand that abortion is health care. And that American women suffer when it is denied to them. In January of this year,
we learned about Brittany Watts, an Ohio woman who was denied an abortion and
charged with abuse of a corpse, a felony, after she miscarried alone and at home.
Nicole Miller, an Idaho woman, had to fly to Utah earlier this year as a failing pregnancy caused her to bleed profusely. But, not enough for doctors in Boise to terminate the pregnancy that was endangering her life. A doctor refused to perform the emergency surgery, telling her that he wasn’t willing to risk his medical career for her. She was able to get a lifesaving abortion out of state, but as more bans go into place, the Guttmacher Institute
reports more women are having to travel—and travel further—to obtain needed care. The expense and logistics of arranging travel become a barrier, and more women are exposed to needless suffering and trauma in the name of “pro-life” policies.
Yesterday in Texas, two women
filed administrative complaints against hospitals, alleging they were denied emergency care for ectopic pregnancies, which put their lives at risk in violation of federal law.
- Kyleigh Thurman, a Texas woman, alleges she was initially discharged from the hospital and subsequently denied care days later for an ectopic pregnancy. She was finally treated after her ob-gyn pleaded with the hospital staff, but the delay caused her fallopian tube to rupture, she said. According to the complaint, the hospital treated her only after her ob-gyn “pleaded” with staff to provide the necessary care.
“For weeks, I was in and out of emergency rooms trying to get the abortion that I needed to save my future fertility and life,” she said.
- Kelsie Norris-De La Cruz alleges she was discharged from a Texas hospital without treatment for an ectopic pregnancy. Just hours later she had to be rushed into emergency surgery at a different facility. Medical experts have opined the Texas abortion ban played a role in her denial of care.
The law in question is the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). It prohibits hospitals from “patient dumping,” and the Biden Administration argued that meant hospital emergency rooms were obligated to provide lifesaving care, including abortion, to save a patient’s life. The Supreme Court ended up ducking the issue, deciding that certiorari in the case,
Moyle v. United States, had been “improvidently granted,” meaning it shouldn’t have agreed to hear the case, and sending the case back to the Court of Appeals. That leaves doctors in limbo, not knowing if action would be taken against them in the future for providing patients with care now, while the lower courts consider the matter further.
(full article online)
Since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v.
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