Texas Forced This Woman to Give Birth to a Stillborn Son. She's Suing

[In It to Win It]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/texas-forced-woman-birth-stillborn-182841209.html

After multiple miscarriages, Kiersten Hogan thought she would never be able to carry a pregnancy to term. She’d nearly given up hope when in June 2021 she learned she was pregnant. But at just 19 weeks — days after Texas’ Senate Bill 8 went into effect — Hogan woke up at 5 a.m. in excruciating pain. She called 911 and was instructed to unlock her front door and lay on the ground until EMTs arrived. “It was the longest 5 minutes of my life,” Hogan recalled on Monday.

Her water had broken. By the time she arrived at the hospital, she had lost too much amniotic fluid for her son to survive — but hospital staff didn’t tell her that. “They didn’t tell me much about my son’s chances of survival. But the one thing they did make clear repeatedly was that I should not leave,” a tearful Hogan said Monday. “I was told that if I tried to discharge myself, or seek care elsewhere, that I could be arrested for trying to kill my child. So of course, I stayed.”

Hogan recounted a harrowing five days inside the hospital, where she says religious counselors repeatedly came to visit her, even though she had declined pastoral care. She recalled being terrified of even going to the bathroom — afraid she would go into premature labor, and be arrested.

“On the fifth day in the hospital, while using the bathroom, my son started to enter the birth canal,” Hogan said. “I was rushed to labor and delivery where I gave birth to him stillborn.”

The next morning she was discharged, and told she could return to work the next day, “as if nothing had happened,” Hogan said.

[Arazi]

1. This is enslavement

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. She is more than entitled to sue those bastards!

Withholding care, not telling her the truth and forcing her to listen to religious counselors?

More than enough reasons for filing suit.

[Hortensis]

3. Up to at least 13 claimants now, including 2 ob/gyns, challenging

three Texas laws.

This sounds like a good one.

It challenges the state’s three, overlapping bans: a criminal ban that pre-dates Roe v. Wade, a trigger ban — now in effect — passed in anticipation of Roe being overturned, and S.B. 8, an de facto ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.

All three bans ostensibly include exceptions for medical “emergencies,” but the laws’ vague language has contributed to widespread confusion over what qualifies — and stiff penalties that have made medical providers fearful of offering treatment that could put them in legal jeopardy. Doctors who are found guilty of providing an abortion in violation of the bans can face up to 99 years in prison, a minimum of $100,000 in fines, and the loss of their medical license.

Among the eight women who joined the lawsuit on Monday, some, like Hogan, were forced to give birth against their will to children who survived for vanishingly short periods of time. ...

No idea how many, but for sure victims include hospital personnel who were forced to comply with laws/interpretations they believe are wrong medically and morally.

It's quite likely that NO ONE among the hospital staff approved what they were doing, but they would have been concerned that they not put anyone in legal danger, including by not somehow protecting their patient.

The hospital would have offered religious counseling before these laws were passed, so it's also very possible, possibly probable, that none of the counselors approved of the new counseling they are now required by RW extremist laws to provide.

[JudyM]

33. If the insurance companies join, there will be a greater chance of prevailing.

They have a lot to lose here.

[localroger]

4. Considering how outrageous these outcomes are

...I find it interesting that they are being forced on people in a country where guns are more common than model trains and "second amendment solution" is a common code word. That shit could cut both ways, you know.

[MissB]

5. How much does 5 days of involuntary hospitalization cost

Not just in terms of $.

[progressoid]

6. No words.

[Bettie]

7. How is this in the "entertainment" section?

That's just odd.

But, to the point of the story, this woman was tortured.

Also, after a 19 week stillbirth, a person needs some time off...going back to work the next day. WTF?

I guess we need to accept that a lot more people than we thought truly hate women and want to be in control of our lives.

[MontanaMama]

8. I noticed the same detail.

Shocking.

This woman was indeed tortured.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

9. It was originally published in Rolling Stone; I'm assuming the algorithm got it wrong.

[barbtries]

19. they're known as republicans.

nobody is allowed to tell me that republicans do not hate women. they've been proving that they do for far too long.

[PlutosHeart]

10. Holding her hostage while they prothelitize at her.

What a nightmare.
She should not have had to go through ANY of this. Am aware that they do this to seniors and ill in nursing homes too. They come and leave their pamphlets in their rooms and attempt to convert. Have seen it way more than once.

[azureblue]

14. I saw it, too

And it's Baptist doing this crap. I got a hospitalized friend a statue of the virgin Mary (Official Catholic Issue ) for his room, and suddenly they stopped.

[PlutosHeart]

28. I asked the front desk to deny entry of them to my mother's room

and they did not. They let them in I think because they did not see them.
My mother was mute from having a full-body stroke but still had some sense to her. They frightened her to death. Literally. She died a couple of days later.

[3Hotdogs]

30. I wonder if the church of Satan has any merch we could buy to place on our bed stand.

It'd be like having the silver cross and mirror to chase vampires. I know that one works. I haven't seen any vampires since.



The key phrase to stop Jehovah's Wits from ringing your doorbell is "I am apostate."

[womanofthehills]

43. Catholic hospitals have done this in the past

Your baby dies but “we are a Catholic hospital’ - we have to wait for the baby to come out” - no intervention.

I almost bled to death in a Catholic Hospital in Greensboro, NC years ago.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

40. When one of them tried to leave one of their pamphlets with me

I tore them up, right in front of the delusion-peddler.

"Get the f'n hint. And take that garbage with you. I don't want filth like that around me when I'm sick."

Never had a problem with them again.

I find that listing yourself as the polite "None" or the more forthright "atheist" is like a challenge to the delusion peddlers. That's why I now put "Satanist" on the paperwork. When the admissions clerks look askance at me, I say, "I'm not one, but it's the only way to get certain people to respect the fact that I don't want anyone bible-bashing me when I'm sick. If they won't respect the truth from me, then I might as well scare the ever-loving piss out of them to leave me alone."

It works. And I mean really--really--works. Not a peep from the religion brigade every since I started using that one.

[TeamProg]

11. Holy crap. Fuckers!!!

!

[Initech]

12. Fuck pro lifers! This is absolutely barbaric!

[barbtries]

18. please consider putting

"pro-lifers" in quotes - we know they are not pro-life and it's time to stop conceding that to them. thank you.

[Bettie]

25. I call them fetus fetishists

because they only care about fetuses...once they're born, they do not care at all.

[barbtries]

26. works for me

i call them anything that is closer to true than "pro life" and fetus fetishists fills the bill

[DFW]

34. I always do.

Mainly because, I find them to be anything but.

[barbtries]

37. me too.

i've taken to commenting on it every single time i encounter it in this context. it's a pet peeve.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

41. I find that "woman-killing monsters"

Works as well as anything else.

But that's just me.

[barbtries]

42. yeah.

appropriate. republicans hate women. female republicans have cruel streaks that don't end

[ecstatic]

13. Keep suing the shit out of them

Money talks. Of course, TX will probably outlaw suing, but we'll see.

[SouthernDem4ever]

15. Sickening. I hope her lawsuit gains traction

Too many others will be or already are in her situation. I wish she could get the F out of that state full of govt morons.

[Tree Lady]

16. I hope she wins but it's Texas

so not thinking she will. Go to work next day! WTF!

It makes me sick hearing about what these women are going through.

[barbtries]

17. it's so heartless!

next thing they'll hit her with a 6-figure bill for it.

the fucking bastards.

i would have been screaming at the "religious counselors" - fuck off! omigawd this just hurts.

[AllyCat]

20. Abbott and all Republicans are terrible people.

Cruel, inhuman, sadistic phucks.

[Warpy]

21. Loving Christian cruelty

and if you're not part of that peculiarly misogynistic sect, you must be forced to adhere to its rules.

[LizBeth]

22. I hope she wins and wins big. Aminals. This is the hate I feel to these people.

And I do not hate

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

23. K & R

[Sogo]

24. Women as breed stock; nothing more. nt.

[Blue Owl]

27. K&R for visibility

[moonshinegnomie]

29. the legislators that voted for these laws need to be made to pay a personal choice

i know they technically have immunity for their votes but tough shit. they need to pay personally. just like in ww2 nazis were technically "following the law". there needs to be real consequences for these extremist legislators.

[DFW]

35. It'll never happen, but I fully support this.

They are willing accomplices in torture, both physical and mental.

[dlk]

31. Treating woman worse than farm animals

It’s barbaric

[no_hypocrisy]

32. At least intentional infliction of

Emotional Distress.

[Ilsa]

36. Get back to your job! Your insurance won't pay your hospital bill

beyond one day after birth.

Geez, did her employer even give her sick time off for bereavement, or does losing your baby that got halfway through the pregnancy count? A six week pregnancy is a baby, but a 19 week fetus is no big deal? WTF is wrong with these people?

[Hortensis]

38. Good point. A bunch of laws have been passed to keep them

from covering abortion etcetera, no doubt many also poorly written and unworkable without further adjudication. They're tangled up to their necks in this legal mess that blocks their role in enabling healthcare and preventing small health issues from becoming potentially enormous.

How many industries are the Republicans taking on in their attempted Christian nationalist takeover?

[3catwoman3]

39. Continuing a pregnancy, at any stage, when the fetus has...

...no chance of living makes NO biological sense.

[GoodRaisin]

44. Republican politicians are the worst kind of scum there is.

And I’m not stereotyping when I say that. I truly believe that about very damn one of them.