Doctors Warned Her Pregnancy Could Kill Her. Then Tennessee Outlawed Abortion.

[RandySF]

One day late last summer, Dr. Barry Grimm called a fellow obstetrician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center to consult about a patient who was 10 weeks pregnant. Her embryo had become implanted in scar tissue from a recent cesarean section, and she was in serious danger. At any moment, the pregnancy could rupture, blowing open her uterus.

Dr. Mack Goldberg, who was trained in abortion care for life-threatening pregnancy complications, pulled up the patient’s charts. He did not like the look of them. The muscle separating her pregnancy from her bladder was as thin as tissue paper; her placenta threatened to eventually invade her organs like a tumor. Even with the best medical care in the world, some patients bleed out in less than 10 minutes on the operating table. Goldberg had seen it happen.

Mayron Michelle Hollis stood to lose her bladder, her uterus and her life. She was desperate to end the pregnancy. On the phone, the two doctors agreed this was the best path forward, guided by recommendations from the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, an association of 5,500 experts on high-risk pregnancy. The longer they waited, the more complicated the procedure would be.

But it was Aug. 24, and performing an abortion was hours away from becoming a felony in Tennessee. There were no explicit exceptions. Prosecutors could choose to charge any doctor who terminated any pregnancy with a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison. If charged, the doctor would have the burden of proving in front of a judge or jury that the procedure was necessary to save the patient’s life, similar to claiming self-defense in a homicide case.

The doctors didn’t know where to turn to for guidance. There was no institutional process to help them make a final call. Hospitals have malpractice lawyers but do not typically employ criminal lawyers. Even local criminal lawyers weren’t sure what to say — they had no precedent to draw on, and the attorney general and the governor weren’t issuing any clarifications. Under the law, it was possible a prosecutor could argue Hollis’ case wasn’t an immediate emergency, just a potential risk in the future.



https://www.propublica.org/article/tennessee-abortion-ban-doctors-ectopic-pregnancy

[spanone]

1. Our state is a maga cesspool.

NO ABORTIONS. NO EXCEPTIONS.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. If people read any "this person couldn't get an abortion" story, it should be this one. It did an

amazing job of showing how good people feel they have no choice but to do the wrong thing. It illustrated the absolutely devastating decisions health care providers will be faced with, and how those decisions will pit them against each other. It also effectively illustrates the breathtaking cruelty of the systems we live in -- healthcare, legal, criminal justice, family courts. K&R

[SharonClark]

4. Well said and so true.

[Lars39]

3. "Crispens felt everyone in the room was traumatized."

“This is going to drive people out of the medical profession,” she thought. “We took an oath — we have to be able to take care of these women before they get to this point.”

I’ve been thinking about this aspect a lot also. Nobody, including medical personnel should go thru this if at all avoidable.

[calimary]

10. "First, do no harm."

That’s just a tiny, four-word directive out of a larger statement.

I wish state and federal legislators had to follow the same sort of guideline. But I’d expect most of ‘em would mouth the words but don’t intend to take it to heart or follow it at all.

[Hekate]

5. Grim, grim stuff

[StarryNite]

6. This is beyond words...

[Freddie]

7. There's a link in the article

About how the Repug state legislature is opposed to passing a modified law that would more clearly spell out and give doctors more leeway in life-or-death situations. Apparently it’s real “pro-life” to let the woman just die, even when the fetus is non-viable. How did our lives become so disposable?

[Timeflyer]

8. It has to be deliberate sadistic disregard for women's lives and health.

They really care more about pandering to the rabid anti-abortion nuts than about the people who will die as a result of the extreme forced birth laws they're passing.

[Warpy]

9. "A potential ermergency" that could kill her within the next 10 minutes.

That should be "imminent danger of death" enough for anyone.

Then again, I'm not a raving Baptist who's playing to the lunatic right. But yeah, I'd risk my nursing license to assist with that one.

To these lunatics trying to define medical practice to please a Bronze Age deity, it's OK if she bleeds out, it's god's will, and she's only a woman, after all.

[sakabatou]

11. We warned them.

We told them this kind of shit would happen, but no, they voted Repuke.

[Unwind Your Mind]

12. Never mind that she's already someone's mother

Screw her living children too I guess