‘It’s a public health risk’: nurse decries infection control at US anti-abortion crisis center

A Kentucky nurse tried to hold a pregnancy center accountable for the problems she saw – but such facilities are subject to little regulation

Laura C Morel
Thu 2 Feb 2023

At 52, Susan Rames was looking for a way to give back. She worked part-time at a Kentucky hospital as a postpartum nurse and, with her three children nearly grown, she had some extra time during the week.

Motivated by her Christian faith, Rames decided to volunteer at ALC Pregnancy Resource Center, a crisis pregnancy center whose mission is to discourage people from seeking abortions.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/02/kentucky-crisis-pregnancy-center-anti-abortion-malpractices

A Miscarrying Woman Nearly Died After a Catholic Hospital Sent Her Home Three Times

A Miscarrying Woman Nearly Died After a Catholic Hospital Sent Her Home Three Times
Washington lawmakers have enacted some of the country’s most progressive policies to protect reproductive health care. But these measures have run up against the state’s high concentration of religious facilities.

Sep 25, 2019
Amy Littlefield

There’s a single hospital in Bellingham, a picturesque coastal city 20 miles from the Canadian border in Washington. So when a Bellingham mental health counselor named Alison started bleeding three months into her pregnancy in 2013, PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center was her only option.

Alison had first gone to her OB-GYN’s private practice, where her doctor, C. Shayne Mora, diagnosed her with a possible case of placenta previa, a serious condition where the placenta blocks the cervix. He told her to go to the hospital if she started bleeding again. When that happened the next day, Alison went to the St. Joseph emergency room. After an ultrasound showed the fetus was viable, the hospital discharged her. Providers recorded a clinical impression of “threatened abortion,” meaning Alison was at risk of miscarrying. They told her to return if she bled more heavily or ran a fever.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2019/09/25/miscarriage-catholic-hospital/

ITALY – Woman pregnant with twins left to die: seven doctors charged with culpable manslaughter

ITALY – Woman pregnant with twins left to die: seven doctors charged with culpable manslaughter

by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion

Nov 20, 2018

Seven doctors at Catania, Sicily’s Cannizzaro Hospital were indicted on 13 November 2018 for the October 2016 death of a 32-year-old woman who died of septicaemia after miscarrying twins. The charges are multiple culpable manslaughter. Valentina Milluzzo was 19 weeks pregnant with twins at the time, having undergone IVF treatment. She experienced cervical dilation and began to miscarry but life-saving, emergency action was not taken. Staff refused to carry out an abortion as long as there was a fetal heartbeat. The same as Savita Halappanavar in Ireland in 2012. However, as activist Nadia Somma pointed out, abortion has been legal in Italy for 40 years. Italian law does not allow “objecting” doctors to deny care when the life of a pregnant woman is in danger, under any circumstances. Yet in Sicily 87.6% of doctors are so-called “conscientious” objectors.

SOURCES: ANSA.IT, 13 November 2018 ; IPPF-EN, 20 October 2016 ; PHOTO: © ANSA

Continued: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/italy-woman-pregnant-with-twins-left-to-die-seven-doctors-charged-with-culpable-manslaughter/

New report explores what total abortion ban means in the Dominican Republic

By Jessica Ravitz, CNN
Mon November 19, 2018

(CNN) A woman spoke of her 16-year-old daughter who died after being denied chemotherapy for leukemia because she was in the early weeks of pregnancy. A nurse described how a woman who was experiencing heavy bleeding after self-inducing an abortion was forced by medical providers to wait for treatment as "punishment" -- only to lose too much blood to be saved. An outreach worker remembered the mentally disabled 14-year-old girl who became pregnant at 12, probably by her father, and received no care.

Stories like these are revealed in a new Human Rights Watch report, released Monday, that focuses on the effect of a total government ban on abortions in the Dominican Republic.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/19/health/dominican-republic-abortion-ban-report-intl/index.html

Unconscionable: When Providers Deny Abortion Care

Unconscionable: When Providers Deny Abortion Care

June 19, 2018
Click here to download the report [PDF]

The global women’s movement has fought for many years to affirm safe and legal abortion as a fundamental right, and the global trend has been the liberalization of abortion laws. Progress is not linear, however, and persistent barriers prevent these laws and policies from increasing women’s access to services. One such obstacle is the growing use of conscience claims to justify refusal of abortion care.

Often called “conscientious objection,” a concept historically associated with the right to refuse to take part in the military or in warfare on religious or moral grounds, the term has recently been co-opted by anti-choice movements. Indeed, accommodations for health care providers to refuse to provide care are often deliberately inserted into policies with the aim of negating the hard-fought right to abortion care.

Existing evidence reveals a worrisome and growing global trend of health care providers who are refusing to deliver abortion and other sexual and reproductive health care. This phenomenon violates the ethical principle of “do no harm,” and has grave consequences for women, especially those who are already more vulnerable and marginalized.

Continued: https://iwhc.org/resources/unconscionable-when-providers-deny-abortion-care/