One woman miscarried in the restroom lobby of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.
The cases raise alarms about the state of emergency pregnancy care in the U.S., especially in states that enacted strict abortion laws and sparked confusion around the treatment doctors can provide.
“It is shocking, it’s absolutely shocking,” said Amelia Huntsberger, an OB/GYN in Oregon. “It is appalling that someone would show up to an emergency room and not receive care – this is inconceivable.”
It’s happened despite federal mandates that the women be treated.
The problem is, they’re already in a position where they can get charged if they do treat these women, and end up having to do something the anti-abortion assholes don’t approve of.
Charging them for not treating the women puts them in a “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” situation where the only logical course of action is to shut down the hospital and leave the state.
And complete hospital closure is the only thing that will change some people’s minds.