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.

  • BertramDitore@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Why the hell are security guards and front desk staff making medical decisions? I’m sure their jobs aren’t easy, but this isn’t their job.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      One of the reasons, I presume, is the same reason why some older black people in the south don’t have a birth certificate (and thus now can’t get a voter ID). “We don’t let your kind in here.”