USA – Malpractice lawsuits over denied abortion care may be on the horizon

Sunday, June 25, 2023
Harris Meyer

A year after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many physicians and hospitals in the states that have restricted abortion reportedly are refusing to end the pregnancies of women facing health-threatening complications out of fear they might face criminal prosecution or loss of their medical license.

Some experts predict those providers could soon face a new legal threat: medical malpractice lawsuits alleging they harmed patients by failing to provide timely, necessary abortion care.

Continued: https://www.capradio.org/articles/2023/06/25/malpractice-lawsuits-over-denied-abortion-care-may-be-on-the-horizon/

Hospitals in Two States Denied an Abortion to a Miscarrying Patient. Investigators Say They Broke Federal Law.

Doctors told her she might die but she couldn’t have an abortion under state law until she got sicker, documents show. The Biden administration says failing to act violates a federal law requiring hospitals to provide emergency care.

by Kavitha Surana
May 19, 2023

Mylissa Farmer knew her fetus was dying inside of her. Her water broke less than 18 weeks into her pregnancy last August, and she was desperate for an abortion.

But according to federal documents, during three emergency room visits over two days in Missouri and Kansas, doctors repeatedly gave Farmer the same chilling message: Though there was virtually no chance her fetus would survive and the pregnancy was putting her at high risk for life-threatening complications, there was nothing they could do for her.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/two-hospitals-denied-abortion-miscarrying-patient-breaking-federal-law

USA – Feds: Hospitals that denied emergency abortion broke the law

A first-of-its-kind federal investigation has found two hospitals put a pregnant woman's life in jeopardy and violated federal law by refusing to provide an emergency abortion when she experienced premature labor at 17 weeks

By AMANDA SEITZ, Associated Press
May 1, 2023

WASHINGTON -- Two hospitals that refused to provide an emergency abortion to a pregnant woman who was experiencing premature labor put her life in jeopardy and violated federal law, a first-of-its-kind investigation by the federal government has found.

The findings, revealed in documents obtained by The Associated Press, are a warning to hospitals around the country as they struggle to reconcile dozens of new state laws that ban or severely restrict abortion with a federal mandate for doctors to provide abortions when a woman's health is at risk. The competing edicts have been rolled out since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion last year.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/feds-hospitals-denied-emergency-abortion-broke-law-98983330