Abortion hospital chaos leaves women forced to miscarry in public bathrooms and told to 'let nature take its course', lawsuit claims

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Women suffering pregnancy emergencies are being turned away by doctors frightened of breaking confusing new abortion rules, a lawsuit claims. 

One woman in Texas says she was given a pamphlet on miscarriage and told her to 'let nature take its course' before discharging her without treating her ectopic pregnancy - a deadly condition that sees the unviable embryo grow outside the womb.

The 25-year-old bled for three days and has now been rendered infertile. 

Two women — one in Florida and one in Texas — were dismissed by doctors and left to miscarry in public restrooms.

Kyleigh Thurman [pictured] experienced an ectopic pregnancy that doctors failed to treat, legal documents say, and she ended up losing her fertility

Kelsie Norris-De La Cruz [shown] had to have emergency surgery that resulted in losing her right fallopian tube, and she lost approximately 75 percent of her right ovary

At least 100 pregnant women in severe medical distress were turned away from emergency departments in 2022, an Associated Press analysis shows.

It's not clear how those numbers compared to pre Dobbs but anecdotally doctors are reporting confusion about how to approach abortion issues in hospitals. 

Experts and healthcare providers attribute the issue to fears doctors have of overstepping abortion bans and facing prison.

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Two new legal complaints from victims of ruptured ectopic pregnancies, which occurs when a fertilized egg attaches to the fallopian tube instead of the uterus, allege Texas hospitals failed to provide them with the speedy, life-saving treatment they needed, instead sending them home multiple times to fend for themselves.

Texas law regarding abortion explicitly says that ending ectopic pregnancies, which are never viable, is legal. 

Under state law, an 'act is not an abortion if the act is done with the intent to… remove an ectopic pregnancy.'

Ectopic pregnancy is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the first trimester, accounting for five to 10 percent of all pregnancy-related deaths.

The state's law criminalizes abortion from the moment a heartbeat is detected, around five or six weeks gestation except when the pregnant woman's life is put at risk. There are no exceptions for cases of rape and incest. 

Providers found to have performed an abortion will be forced to pay $100,000 and/or spend the rest of their lives in prison. 

But the legal complaints for both Texas victims, Kelsie Norris-De La Cruz, 25, of Dallas, and Kyleigh Thurman of Burnet, claim doctors have been scared into running extensive tests despite knowing the diagnosis in order to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the pregnancy is unviable.

Texas' six-week abortion ban allows for the procedure in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, which is never viable 

But in the time doctors are running superfluous tests, they're delaying life-saving medical care and allowing the patient's physical condition to deteriorate. 

Since the federal guarantee to the right to an abortion was overturned by the conservative-leaning Supreme court in June 2022, the number of states that have passed tight restrictions or all-out bans on abortion has reached 22, with even more considering legislation that aims to curtail rights.

Both Texas victims are demanding the federal government investigate the hospitals they were treated at to determine whether they broke federal law by denying them care. 

Kelsie Norris-De La Cruz, who had experienced two miscarriages previously and was trying to prevent another pregnancy, learned she was expecting in January 2024.

She was in her final year of college and she and her boyfriend began to plan for their new lives as parents.

But while waiting for her first pre-natal appointment, she noticed something was terribly wrong. 

She bled for hours before going to the emergency room at Medical City Healthcare in Dallas, where her high hormone levels and heavy bleeding pointed to another miscarriage. 

She was sent home and told to seek additional care if she continued experiencing cramping and bleeding. And she did, at one point having severe cramps that made it impossible to stand up and drive herself to school. 

At one point, she began passing blood clots and made an appointment at her college’s health center on February 12. 

The staff noted severe pain on her right side and told Ms Norris-De La Cruz to go to the hospital emergency room immediately.

Norris-De La Cruz had experienced two prior miscarriages before experiencing a near-fatal ectopic pregnancy. She was in her last year of college when she learned she was pregnant once again

After rushing to Texas Health Arlington Hospital with her mother, further hormone tests revealed they were surging. 

It gave Ms Norris-De La Cruz a glimmer of hope: maybe her pregnancy was still viable after all.

But her world crumbled when she learned it was an ectopic pregnancy. She could either undergo surgery or receive a shot of methotrexate, which stops the growth of pregnancy tissue that has implanted outside the uterus and allows the body to absorb that tissue.

She opted to surgically remove the mass, believing it would give her a better chance of having the situation resolved completely without needing follow up care.  

When the on-call OB/GYNs arrived, the hospital wouldn't treat Ms Norris-De La Cruz for her ectopic pregnancy.

Even though two doctors at the hospital knew her pregnancy could rupture, they still refused to help her and sent her home, asking her to come back in 48 hours for another blood test, according to the legal complaint. 

The complaint states: ‘As the conversation became more heated, the OB/GYN confirmed it was possible that [Ms Norris-De La Cruz's ectopic pregnancy] could rupture over the next 48 hours and subsequently stormed out of the room.'

A ruptured ectopic pregnancy leads to severe, life-threatening internal bleeding as well as a risk of infection and, typically, impaired fertility. 

‘The OB/GYN recorded in Ms. Norris-De La Cruz’s chart that “although this is likely an ectopic pregnancy if she has not [had] intercourse since December, [Ms. Norris De La Cruz] is not a reliable historian as she is very angry and upset,"' according to the complaint.

Desperate for treatment, and even after another emergency room doctor noted in Ms. Norris-De La Cruz’s file: ‘I do not feel comfortable discharging her home and do not think that is in her best interest,’ she was told to go home and return in two days for another blood test. 

She and her mother knew then Texas Arlington would not help her, and even Houston hospitals said she would receive the same treatment there.

Coincidentally, her close friend was at an OB/GYN appointment when she showed her doctor Ms Norris-De La Cruz’s scans, which showed a mass so large the doctor could see it from far away.

That doctor performed emergency surgery and ‘had to remove most of Ms Norris-De La Cruz’s right fallopian tube, and she lost approximately 75 percent of her right ovary.

‘The removal of the fallopian tube and ovary, that was necessitated by the delay in treatment, likely will impact her ability to have a child in the future.’

While this doesn't necessarily mean she will never be able to carry a child again,as she still has one fallopian tube to serve as a pathway for the fertilized egg to travel to the uterus. 

But the loss of a major portion of her right ovary decreases her overall egg reserve drastically, meaning there will be far fewer eggs available during ovulation when she next wants to get pregnant.  

Kyleigh Thurman's legal complaint is similar.

Ms Thurman, a massage therapist, had never been pregnant before January 2023, when she suspected something was wrong with her body. Her period was irregular, she had severe cramping in her abdomen and had been experiencing continuous bleeding for a month.

Kyleigh Thurman knew something was wrong when she became pregnant in January 2023. When doctors finally obliged to give her the necessary care to remove the mass on her fallopian tube, it was too late. It had ruptured, causing severe internal bleeding

In February of that year, her OB/GYN told her to rush to the emergency room, suspecting she had an ectopic pregnancy. Her hometown emergency room could not find a pregnancy in her uterus, measured her hormone levels, and sent her home.

Ms Thurman returned to the same ER two days later after her doctor said she needed injectable methotrexate to remove the mass on her fallopian tube before it ruptured, which could potentially kill her. 

The ER reportedly did not stock methotrexate, so Ms Thurman rushed to Ascension Williamson Hospital an hour away. 

Doctors in the ER could see the mass there, too, and noted her hormone levels had plummeted, both telltale signs of an ectopic pregnancy.

Still, the hospital denied her methotrexate or any other treatment for ectopic pregnancy and she was sent home, told yet again to return in two days. 

Finally, after her OB/GYN rushed to the hospital to advocate for her patient, medical staff at Ascension Williamson Hospital obliged and gave her a shot of methotrexate.

Ms Thurman told the Associated Press: ‘[My doctor] came in and she’s like, "You’re either going to have to have a blood transfusion, or you’re going to have to have surgery or you’re going to bleed out." 

That’s when I just kind of was like, “Oh my God, I’m dying.”’

Doctors at Ascension said she was bleeding out and in emergency surgery had to remove her right fallopian tube.

Her lawyers said: ‘After the surgery, Kyleigh was overwhelmed by the horror of the ordeal. The removal of the fallopian tube that was necessitated by the delay in treatment likely will impact her ability to have a child in the future.

Ms Thurman was told repeatedly by doctors in the ED to go home and wait two days before returning to the hospital. She was not sick enough for them to feel legally safe to perform a procedure that would treat her ectopic pregnancy

‘In addition to the physical toll, this experience caused Kyleigh significant psychological harm. Waiting any longer could have cost Ms. Thurman her life.’

Texas’ six-week abortion ban has had disastrous consequences for women with PPROM.

A 2022 study in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology reported that in cases where patients waited for treatment, 57 percent experienced serious health problems compared to 33 percent of patients who chose to end the pregnancy right away in states without similar laws.

The researchers concluded that Texas’ law that requires waiting for treatment of pregnancy complications around the time a baby can survive outside the womb was ‘associated with significant maternal morbidity.’

Another woman in Texas presented to Sacred Heart Emergency Center where she was bleeding profusely. But staff manning the front desk refused to check her in, saying that because she was not an established patient of the hospital's medical staff, they could not treat her. 

Her husband watched as she miscarried in the ER's restroom, talking to paramedics on 911 who could bring her to a different hospital. 

Dr Amelia Huntsberger, an OB/GYN in Oregon, said: ‘It is shocking, it’s absolutely shocking.

‘It is appalling that someone would show up to an emergency room and not receive care -- this is inconceivable.’

Their stories of being denied care in red states with rigid abortion restrictions are not unique.

In Florida, abortion is banned after 6 weeks except when the procedure would either ‘save the pregnant woman’s life’ or ‘avert a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.’

But the law failed Broward County native Anya Cook, according to federal documents.

Ms Cook, just over 15 weeks pregnant, was on the toilet in her hair salon, thinking she was about to die. Her baby was not alive and she was bleeding profusely.

Over the course of the day, scrambling for care, she lost half the blood in her body. 

She was leaking amniotic fluid, which protects the baby in the womb. 

She went to the hospital that night, but was told that there were no beds available and they couldn't help her. 

They sent her home to deal with her miscarriage on her own. 

Doctors diagnosed her with pre-viability preterm prelabor rupture of the membranes (PPROM), which occurs in less than one percent of pregnancies. 

An ultrasound at the hospital had shown a heartbeat, meaning she couldn't have an abortion. 

And she wasn't sick enough yet for doctors to comfortably induce labor. 

After passing her dead fetus in the hair salon bathroom two days later, paramedics rushed in, carried her out on a stretcher, and took her to the hospital. The on-call OB/GYN there said she was ‘critically ill’ and needed to be put on a ventilator. 

According to records, Cook was sedated for more than 12 hours and woke up the next morning.

She learned the doctors were able to save her uterus. However, several physicians said the procedure to stop the bleeding might have permanently damaged the arteries supplying blood to her uterus, which could lower her chances of having a healthy pregnancy in the future.