Emergency rooms refused to treat pregnant women, leaving one to miscarry in a lobby restroom

BY AMANDA SEITZ
April 19, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — One woman miscarried in the lobby restroom of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to check her in. 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.

Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, federal documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/pregnancy-emergency-care-abortion-supreme-court-roe-9ce6c87c8fc653c840654de1ae5f7a1c

USA – Faced with abortion bans, doctors beg hospitals for help with key decisions

Vague state laws, and a lack of guidance on how to interpret them, have led to some patients being denied care until they are critically ill

By Caroline Kitchener and Dan Diamond
October 28, 2023

Amelia Huntsberger pulled up a list of the top administrators at her northern Idaho hospital, anxious last fall to confirm she could treat a patient with a potentially life-threatening pregnancy complication. But it was a Friday afternoon — and no one was picking up.

Huntsberger said she called six administrators before she finally got ahold of someone, her patient awaiting help a few rooms away. When she asked whether she could terminate a pregnancy under Idaho’s new abortion ban — which allows doctors to perform an abortion only if they deem it “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman” — the OB/GYN said the decision was punted back to her.

Unlocked: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/28/abortion-bans-medical-exceptions/

Pregnant with no OB-GYNs around: In Idaho, maternity care became a casualty of its abortion ban

After an Idaho hospital closed its obstetrics department, pregnant women in the county have been left without nearby care. Their OB-GYNs fled the state.

Sept. 30, 2023
By Julianne McShane

If you’re pregnant in Bonner County, Idaho, you’ll likely spend a lot of time on Route 95. Bonner General Health, a 25-bed hospital, discontinued obstetrics, labor and delivery services this year. So for residents, Route 95 is the way to the closest in-state hospital with obstetrics care, which is at least an hour’s drive south — or longer in the snowy winter.

The hospital, which staffed the county’s only OB-GYNs, cited the state’s “legal and political climate” as one of the reasons it shuttered the department. Abortion has been banned in Idaho, with few exceptions, since August 2022.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/pregnant-women-struggle-find-care-idaho-abortion-ban-rcna117872

After Idaho’s strict abortion ban, OB-gyns stage a quick exodus

Reviewed by Emily Henderson
May 2 2023

At a brewery in this northern Idaho city, hundreds of people recently held a wake of sorts to mourn the closure of Sandpoint's only labor and delivery ward, collateral damage from the state's Republican-led effort to criminalize nearly all abortions.

Jen Quintano, the event's organizer and a Sandpoint resident who runs a tree service, called to the crowd, packed shoulder to shoulder as children ran underfoot, "Raise your hand if you were born at Bonner General! Raise your hand if you gave birth at Bonner General!" Nearly everyone raised their hand.

Continued: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230502/After-Idahoe28099s-strict-abortion-ban-OB-gyns-stage-a-quick-exodus.aspx