A Woman Died After Being Told It Would Be a “Crime” to Intervene in Her Miscarriage at a Texas Hospital

Josseli Barnica is one of at least two pregnant Texas women who died after doctors delayed emergency care. She’d told her husband that the medical team said it couldn’t act until the fetal heartbeat stopped.

by Cassandra Jaramillo and Kavitha Surana
Oct. 30, 2024

Josseli Barnica grieved the news as she lay in a Houston hospital bed on Sept. 3, 2021: The sibling she’d dreamt of giving her daughter would not survive this pregnancy.

The fetus was on the verge of coming out, its head pressed against her dilated cervix; she was 17 weeks pregnant and a miscarriage was “in progress,” doctors noted in hospital records. At that point, they should have offered to speed up the delivery or empty her uterus to stave off a deadly infection, more than a dozen medical experts told ProPublica.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/josseli-barnica-death-miscarriage-texas-abortion-ban


Texas Supreme Court rules against woman who sought abortion hours after she says she’ll travel out of state

A state district judge granted the request last week, but the Texas Supreme Court directed the lower court to vacate its order Monday.

Dec. 11, 2023
By Daniella Silva and Aria Bendix

A Texas woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis and who was awaiting a decision from the Texas Supreme Court about whether she would be allowed to get an abortion said Monday that she has decided to leave Texas to get the procedure.

Kate Cox, a mother of two who is around 20 weeks pregnant, found out just after Thanksgiving that her developing fetus has trisomy 18, a fatal diagnosis. Seeking to terminate the pregnancy to protect her health and future fertility, she and her husband sought a court order to block Texas’ abortion bans from applying in her case.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-woman-sought-abortion-court-order-leave-state-rcna129087


Abortion restrictions repel graduating OB-GYNs from conservative states, report shows

Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY
Sept 29, 2023

A survey found new doctors are changing their plans to practice in states with abortion restrictions after the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that preserved abortion as a constitutional right for nearly 50 years.

Researchers from the University of Utah School of Medicine received responses from nearly 350 graduating obstetricians and gynecologists from training sites in 37 states. Findings showed more than 17% of residents said the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision changed their practice and fellowship plans.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/09/29/abortion-new-doctors-avoid-conservative-states-survey-shows/70980770007/


Doctors Warned Her Pregnancy Could Kill Her. Then Tennessee Outlawed Abortion.

A Tennessee mother wanted to end her high-risk pregnancy, but doctors feared prosecution.

by Kavitha Surana, photography by Stacy Kranitz, special to ProPublica
March 14, 2023

This story graphically describes serious complications in pregnancies and births, and it mentions suicide.

One day late last summer, Dr. Barry Grimm called a fellow obstetrician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center to consult about a patient who was 10 weeks pregnant. Her embryo had become implanted in scar tissue from a recent cesarean section, and she was in serious danger. At any moment, the pregnancy could rupture, blowing open her uterus.

Dr. Mack Goldberg, who was trained in abortion care for life-threatening pregnancy complications, pulled up the patient’s charts. He did not like the look of them. The muscle separating her pregnancy from her bladder was as thin as tissue paper; her placenta threatened to eventually invade her organs like a tumor. Even with the best medical care in the world, some patients bleed out in less than 10 minutes on the operating table. Goldberg had seen it happen.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/tennessee-abortion-ban-doctors-ectopic-pregnancy