Bleeding and in pain, Kyleigh Thurman didn’t know her doomed pregnancy could kill her.

Emergency room doctors at Ascension Seton Williamson in Texas handed her a pamphlet on miscarriage and told her to “let nature take its course” before discharging her without treatment for her ectopic pregnancy.

When the 25-year-old returned three days later, still bleeding, doctors finally agreed to give her an injection intended to end the pregnancy. But it was too late. The fertilized egg growing on Thurman’s fallopian tube would rupture it, destroying part of her reproductive system.

That’s according to a complaint Thurman and the Center for Reproductive Rights filed last week asking the government to investigate whether the hospital violated a federal law when staff failed to treat her initially in February 2023.

“I was left to flail,” Thurman said. “It was nothing short of being misled.”

Even as the Biden administration has publicly warned hospitals to treat pregnant patients in emergencies, facilities continue to violate the federal law.

More than 100 pregnant women in medical distress who sought help from emergency rooms were turned away or negligently treated since 2022, an Associated Press analysis of federal hospital investigations has found.

  • cashmaggot@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    3 months ago

    Ah, I figured it had to be an abortion situation. Yeah, that’s fucking awful. I am not really sure we decided to walk backwards as a people. But what we do about it from this point on is really in the hands of the voters.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      3 months ago

      Or we could take direct action, help women get access to abortions even if they’re illegal. Everything from driving them to Mexico to darknet market abortion pills.

      • cashmaggot@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        3 months ago

        I hear you but ectopic pregnancies I am not sure that’s something that can just be handled with pills.