Complaints about pregnant women being turned away from emergency rooms spiked in the months after states began enacting strict abortion laws following the 2022 U.S.

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.

  • @[email protected]English
    110•7 months ago

    “It is appalling that someone would show up to an emergency room and not receive care – this is inconceivable.”

    You keep using that word… I do not think it means what you think it means. This was all predicted as potential outcomes from overturning Roe. It’s not even the first time, because this is what things were like before Roe. You know that quote? “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” I used to think it was kind of cliché, but it seems to be more and more relevant all the time these days.

    • @[email protected]
      72•7 months ago

      This is an OB/GYN in a different state reviewing the cases at a medical level. You can be 100% sure she knows why they are occurring :

      For Huntsberger, the OB-GYN, EMTALA was one of the few ways she felt protected to treat pregnant patients in Idaho, despite the state’s abortion ban. She left Idaho last year to practice in Oregon because of the ban.

      What she is saying that it is absolutely shocking that these woman, in deep medical need, were turned away because of cruel and pandering state laws.

      Shes making it clear that medically, these hospitals broke their hippocratic oath in order to comply with these heartless state laws while also violating federal law that requires them to provide medical care to those in need.

      • @[email protected]English
        43•7 months ago

        Oh, I know all that. I still think “inconceivable” is the wrong choice of word. “Monstrous” is good. “Horrifying” works. Even “Heartbreaking”, though that’s maybe a little soft. Unfortunately, it’s all too conceivable.

    • @IzzyScissor
      34•7 months ago

      Corollary: Those preventing history from being taught intend to repeat it.