Politics

10187 readers

153 users here now

In-depth political discussion from around the world; if it's a political happening, you can post it here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

Socialism

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

remington@beehaw.org

alyaza@beehaw.org

TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org

circularfish@beehaw.org

knokelmaat@beehaw.org

A U.S. Woman Died After Being Told It Would Be a “Crime” to Intervene in Her Miscarriage at a Texas Hospital (www.propublica.org)

submitted 5 days ago by tardigrada@beehaw.org to c/politics@beehaw.org

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

Barnica is one of at least two Texas women who ProPublica found lost their lives after doctors delayed treating miscarriages, which fall into a gray area under the state’s strict abortion laws that prohibit doctors from ending the heartbeat of a fetus.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] inverted_deflector@startrek.website 37 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This is absolutely heartbreaking and the inevitable result of not just the repeal of roe but the active punishment of women. And people who are anti choice have this image in their head that it's some woman who slept around, didnt feel like using a condom and at 8 months 3 weeks is trying to use an abortion in place of birth control. They believe that obviously that the law wouldnt be so cruel and sinister as to cause people to die and withhold medical care and make exceptions when it makes sense.

But then theres this:

Soon after the ruling, the Biden administration issued federal guidance reminding doctors in hospital emergency rooms they have a duty to treat pregnant patients who need to be stabilized, including by providing abortions for miscarriages.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fought against that, arguing that following the guidance would force doctors to “commit crimes” under state law and make every hospital a “walk-in abortion clinic.” When a Dallas woman asked a court for approval to end her pregnancy because her fetus was not viable and she faced health risks if she carried it to term, Paxton fought to keep her pregnant. He argued her doctor hadn’t proved it was an emergency and threatened to prosecute anyone who helped her. “Nothing can restore the unborn child’s life that will be lost as a result,” he wrote to the court.

Genuinely an evil evil man.

[–] tardigrada@beehaw.org 15 points 5 days ago

Here's the whole story if I'm not mistaken:

Hell is Not Hot Enough for Ken Paxton - (December 2023)