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.

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.

But when Barnica’s husband rushed to her side from his job on a construction site, she relayed what she said the medical team had told her: “They had to wait until there was no heartbeat,” he told ProPublica in Spanish. “It would be a crime to give her an abortion.”

For 40 hours, the anguished 28-year-old mother prayed for doctors to help her get home to her daughter; all the while, her uterus remained exposed to bacteria.

Three days after she delivered, Barnica died of an infection.

  • orcrist@lemm.ee
    131·
    15 days ago

    Hundreds of doctors and their lawyers disagree with you. Of course they could provide medical services, and see if local law enforcement decides to arrest them and lock them up. Or they could withhold medical services, because that’s what their lawyers say is a reasonable interpretation of the law.

    In other words, it doesn’t really matter what you or I think. It matters what doctors and their lawyers believe is likely to occur. And we know what that is, because they’re telling us out loud, and they’re showing us through their actions.

    Of course you’re entitled to interpret the law however you want to. I think many of us have done that over time, and sometimes we realize that we got it wrong, because we see that lawyers and courts don’t agree with us. Probably this is one of the times that you need to recognize what’s actually happening, and realize that your wishful thinking is just that. I’m sure many people would be happier if reality matched your thoughts, but it doesn’t.

    • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
      315·
      15 days ago

      Can you please tell me how this is confusing:

      Sec. 171.002. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:

      (3) “Medical emergency” means a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that, as certified by a physician, places the woman in danger of death or a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless an abortion is performed.

      …

      Sec. 171.0124. EXCEPTION FOR MEDICAL EMERGENCY. A physician may perform an abortion without obtaining informed consent under this subchapter in a medical emergency. A physician who performs an abortion in a medical emergency shall:

      (1) include in the patient’s medical records a statement signed by the physician certifying the nature of the medical emergency; and

      (2) not later than the 30th day after the date the abortion is performed, certify to the department the specific medical condition that constituted the emergency.

      You do know that medical errors happens, right? People die from them all the time. This seems like a pretty clear-cut case of it.

      • Zombiepirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        15 days ago

        It wasn’t a “medical error.”

        It was the State of Texas intimidating doctors into not performing life-saving healthcare.

        You can try to reframe it all you want, but this it the truth of the situation.

          • Zombiepirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
            11·
            15 days ago

            Yeah, they probably were just taking a long lunch instead of treating a patient.

            Are you really asking how a law can be intimidating? That’s like… The reason we have laws, man.

            • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
              113·
              15 days ago

              Laws can also be misread, and it’s very likely that this was done somehow. The law explicitly allows abortions under these circumstances. Can you explain yourself what’s confusing about it?

              • Zombiepirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
                6·
                15 days ago

                There’s nothing confusing about it.

                The law is set up to intimate doctors into not performing abortions. The doctors believe they will be second-guessed by Ken Paxton and his merry band of fascists.

                You want to reframe it and blame the doctors instead of the draconian law that intimidates healthcare professionals.

                There should never have been a restriction in the first place; women should be free to make their own healthcare decisions free from the constraints of theocratic virtue-signaling control freaks.

                • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
                  111·
                  15 days ago

                  How is allowing abortions during medical emergencies intimidating? That should be reassuring.

                  To your second point, what about the fetus/baby’s bodily autonomy? Surely that should be respected as well if it’s likely to survive.

                  • Zombiepirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    5·
                    15 days ago

                    The results speak for themselves if you’re not afraid to interrogate what happened.

                    But surely you’re more knowledgeable about the law than the lawyers employed by the hospital.

                    The fetus is not autonomous, so how the fuck can it have autonomy?

      • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
        8·
        15 days ago

        It’s confusing because Ken Paxton doesn’t actually care about the law. His goons will show up at your door and accuse you of violating the law whether you did the right thing or not.

        • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
          112·
          15 days ago

          That’s worth watching an innocent person die? Besides, how likely is it that “even though she was literally dying of the infection and the hospital knew it, that didn’t constitute a medical emergency” would hold up in court?