A Third Woman Died Under Texas’ Abortion Ban. Doctors Are Avoiding D&Cs and Reaching for Riskier Miscarriage Treatments.
www.propublica.org
Thirty-five-year-old Porsha Ngumezi’s case raises questions about how abortion bans are pressuring doctors to avoid standard care even in straightforward miscarriages.

Summary

Texas’ strict abortion ban is causing doctors to avoid life-saving dilation and curettage (D&C) procedures, used to remove pregnancy tissue after miscarriages, due to fear of legal repercussions.

Porsha Ngumezi, 35, died in June 2023 after doctors at Houston Methodist Sugar Land gave her misoprostol—a slower, riskier treatment—instead of performing a D&C, despite severe hemorrhaging.

Experts say her death was preventable.

Miscarriage care delays and denials have risen statewide, with physicians hesitant to act under unclear legal protections.

Critics argue the law prioritizes criminal penalties over patient safety, leading to preventable deaths.

  • Verdant BananaEnglish
    10•7 hours ago

    Hope dialed his mother, a former physician, who was unequivocal. “You need a D&C,” she told them, referring to dilation and curettage, a common procedure for first-trimester miscarriages and abortions. If a doctor could remove the remaining tissue from her uterus, the bleeding would end.

    But when Dr. Andrew Ryan Davis, the obstetrician on duty, finally arrived, he said it was the hospital’s “routine” to give a drug called misoprostol to help the body pass the tissue, Hope recalled. Hope trusted the doctor. Porsha took the pills, according to records, and the bleeding continued.

    Three hours later, her heart stopped.

    fuck the oligarchs and their bought politicians and the doctors too for having the training/knowledge and refusing to use it

    no excuse the doctors could not do what was necessary other than political prosecution and if that is the case the medical professionals should step aside for someone who will stand up even when shit hits the fan

    • @dustyData
      20•6 hours ago

      But friend if the doctors step aside, there isn’t anyone to step in their place. Say what you want, but no one will willingly go to jail for one case, when staying out of jail means they can help hundreds. Doctors need support and help, not berating and insults. They’re humans like the rest of us and just doing their best with the shitshow the state handed to them. In some places even the misoprostol is forbidden, as it is part of the medical abortion protocol. Take it on with the constituents who voted for this mess, and the politicians who enacted the regulations, but not on the victims being forced to make morbid choises between their own lives and the lives of others.