Complaints about pregnant women being turned away from emergency rooms spiked in the months after states began enacting strict abortion laws following the 2022 U.S.
One woman miscarried in the restroom lobby of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.
The cases raise alarms about the state of emergency pregnancy care in the U.S., especially in states that enacted strict abortion laws and sparked confusion around the treatment doctors can provide.
“It is shocking, it’s absolutely shocking,” said Amelia Huntsberger, an OB/GYN in Oregon. “It is appalling that someone would show up to an emergency room and not receive care -- this is inconceivable.”
It’s happened despite federal mandates that the women be treated.
So abortion being legal actually saves lives ? You don’t say !
I swear, the fact they call themselves “pro-life” while sowing death and misery is completely unacceptable. It’s like them calling themselves “conservative” while destroying nature and society…
Pacifism is a core value for protestant Christians, as it was preached by Jesus himself. Which goes to show you how many people just use their on-paper religion as an excuse for whatever bullshit.
“It is appalling that someone would show up to an emergency room and not receive care – this is inconceivable.”
You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means. This was all predicted as potential outcomes from overturning Roe. It's not even the first time, because this is what things were like before Roe. You know that quote? "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I used to think it was kind of cliché, but it seems to be more and more relevant all the time these days.
This is an OB/GYN in a different state reviewing the cases at a medical level. You can be 100% sure she knows why they are occurring :
For Huntsberger, the OB-GYN, EMTALA was one of the few ways she felt protected to treat pregnant patients in Idaho, despite the state’s abortion ban. She left Idaho last year to practice in Oregon because of the ban.
What she is saying that it is absolutely shocking that these woman, in deep medical need, were turned away because of cruel and pandering state laws.
Shes making it clear that medically, these hospitals broke their hippocratic oath in order to comply with these heartless state laws while also violating federal law that requires them to provide medical care to those in need.
Oh, I know all that. I still think "inconceivable" is the wrong choice of word. "Monstrous" is good. "Horrifying" works. Even "Heartbreaking", though that's maybe a little soft. Unfortunately, it's all too conceivable.
It is definitely not inconceivable. It is exceptionally conceivable. It is predictable as you said. If you outlaw proper maternal care, proper maternal care will not be given.
As a friend of mine always says, the cruelty is the point.
Federal law requires emergency rooms to treat or stabilize patients who are in active labor and provide a medical transfer to another hospital if they don’t have the staff or resources to treat them. Medical facilities must comply with the law if they accept Medicare funding. The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday that could weaken those protections.
Let's see how long that lasts.
Plus, the effect and point of many of these laws is to create massive liability to make pregnant patients untouchables. Running an OBGYN dept is becoming an unacceptable legal risk.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday that could weaken those protections.
And that's the crux of this whole fucking issue. The orange asshole got elected and weaseled in his judges to tip the balance of the highest court in America.
Just think what else he'll do if he's elected again.
Charge the hospital administration with Gross Negligence, Manslaughter and any other charges that will apply and correct this trend. Healthcare isn’t a privilege, it’s a basic human right and access to it should not be denied
The problem is, they're already in a position where they can get charged if they do treat these women, and end up having to do something the anti-abortion assholes don't approve of.
Charging them for not treating the women puts them in a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation where the only logical course of action is to shut down the hospital and leave the state.
Isn't this a question of, damned if you do; damned if you don't? Provide care and you go to jail. Don't provide care and the woman dies. Medical professionals are not there to sacrifice themselves. If you make it impossible for them to provide care, they will just not do that. I know I would look for another job if that was me.
Hospital administration? How about we sue every backwards asshole who supports this unholy philosophy and make them pay for their consequences in real dollars an cents. We'll see how closely held their values truly are pretty quickly.
I was half expecting to see that this was in fact in America. this probably wouldn’t happen as flamboyantly in any other country with a barely functioning health care system
One of the reasons, I presume, is the same reason why some older black people in the south don't have a birth certificate (and thus now can't get a voter ID). "We don't let your kind in here."
Conservatives often breed like cockroaches. They take pride in how many children they produce, impoverished or not. And too often, neglecting their children is just seen as a way to "toughen 'em up".
In my country medical professionals that help induce an abortion can be imprisoned for 4-10 years. Nonetheless, the thing described in the article doesn't happen. It must be something else.
If they accept the patient, and the patient needs an emergency abortion, then they could face legal consequences for providing one, or face losing their license for denying critical care.
Either way, if such a circumstance happens, the doctor is completely fucked, and they'd rather keep their job, and help other people.
There's confusion about what is and isn't allowed, which isn't helping. Doctors don't know what they could be sued for. Its in their best interest to not see patients like this. Doctors need protections at least, but governments have specifically taken steps to make them liable, and this confusion and refusal is part of the plan to make abortions this scary thing.
It's a major issue with laws when they intermingle with medical practice. Laws are kind of like bad computer code. It is written with an intention but that intention is only as good as how good your technical ability to write the code is which also hinges on understanding what all the potentially the factors at play are. Particularly when your law has particularly harsh penalties for misconduct.
Human bodies are complicated and a lot of law regarding operates in the space of "potential". In a court of law in things like self defense cases where you have to defend your actions from persecution by the code have to prove you had no other "potential" avenues to take because if it can be proven you had other choices or there is a chance however small that you overreacted and things theoretically could have turned out fine the law swoops in and leaves you open to prosecution.
But medical stuff is complicated and nuanced in ways the law is not. Law is a rigid computer code. If you have a situation leaves an opening in the law for "cases that are life threatening." and someone does the thing they then leave themselves open to the potential of having to prove that every single other option was exhausted. If someone is stable and not in immediate distress... Even though you know they will be later given predictable odds it becomes a nightmare of leaving more doubt so one tactic is to just wait until things are life threatening... But the problem with life threatening cases is they hold extra damages and risks. If your life is in danger your organs are failing. There is no question the house is burning down when the flames burst through the windows but if you wanted to mitigate the damages putting it out when the candle first tipped over has the best long term results ...
Say a law stipulates that it's only permissible to help in the event the house is "burning down". This means you have to agree in a court room that your definition of "burning down" is in fact a reasonable interpretation of that specific language. One tactic to be safe is you wait until nobody can argue the state of the house. Would you say a little spot of your carpet being on fire is the house "burning down"? It's not good sure but isn't that hyperbole? What constitutes "burning down" anyway? So your carpet burning isn't the house burning down and there's no provision for the the drapes and furniture, or an oil or oven fire... Those are all not causing damage directly to the structure of the house so the house isn't even burning much less "down"... But if you wait the house will catch fire... But is it "burning down"? It's when the structure of your house is in danger of collapsing right? Down still implies a fire where the house is pretty advanced and there isn't much left afterwards right? At what point is the house actually "burning down"? When the structure catches probably isn't burning "down" is it when 25% of the structure ia compromised? If you put out the fire then the house wouldn't be "down" would it? Still a lot of house that is in fact "up". Well 50% is probably a good call right? Oh but then it's only " in imminent danger of burning down" not actively "burning down" ...
Laws like anti abortion laws tend to be created to be big and showy and easy for lay people to read because they are essentially political showboating. Every place with a total abortion ban has shown to be terrible for women's healthcare in exactly this way and none of this outcome was a surprise to the people fighting to keep abortion legal.
Thanks! Your reply is what finally made me fully "get it".
The states mention in the article say that you can only abort if the mother's health is in danger, or in the cases of rape and incest. If you're treating a pregnant woman and she's in critical condition, you might be faced with having to do an abortion. If you do it, the courts might say the woman wasn't in enough danger. If you don't, the courts might say you caused the patient's death.
Where I live, abortion is 100% banned (hooray for Catholicism). In some other comments in this chain, I asked why that might now happen here.
This is why. To hell if your house is burning, you are not allowed to put it out. Therefore this choice doesn't happen and the gynecologists just do their job, or at least try to.
They should charge the doctor on duty and admins with a crime for that one in Houston -- That is massively fucked up. They should have their licenses removed too absolutely unbelievable
Yeah I don't care about the law if I was in charge of a hospital a woman isn't giving birth in the lobby bathroom after being turned away. Fuck the politicians too though