Josseli Barnica died days state passed six-week abortion ban and doctors delayed treatment, ProPublica reports

Just days after Texas banned abortion past six weeks of pregnancy, a woman died after doctors in the state delayed treating her miscarriage for 40 hours, ProPublica reported on Wednesday.

Experts told ProPublica that the September 2021 death of Josseli Barnica, a 28-year-old mother, was “preventable”. Barnica is the third woman reported by ProPublica to have died in recent years after being unable to access abortion legally or having her medical care delayed.

Although US abortion bans – which more than a dozen states have enacted in the two years since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade – technically permit the procedure in medical emergencies, doctors across the country have said that the laws are worded so vaguely that they don’t know when they can legally intervene. Instead, many physicians say they have been forced to wait until a patient is on the brink of death – then attempt to pull them back.