Lemmy Today

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 she returned three days later, still bleeding, doctors finally agreed to give her an injection to end the pregnancy. It was too late. The fertilized egg growing on Thurman’s fallopian tube ruptured 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 federal law when staff failed to treat her initially in February 2023.

“I was left to flail,” said Thurman, 35. “It was nothing short of being misled.”

In Texas, where doctors face up to 99 years of prison if convicted of performing an illegal abortion, medical and legal experts say the law is complicating decision-making around emergency pregnancy care.

Although the state law says termination of ectopic pregnancies is not considered abortion, the draconian penalties scare Texas doctors from treating those patients,

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.