Emergency rooms refused to treat pregnant patients, leaving one woman to miscarry in a lobby restroom, another to deliver in her car

Are women losing the conservative War on Women? Even though it appears that "innocent babies!!" are collateral damage.

essentialsaltes said:

Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, federal documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal.

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Is there any evidence that abortion restrictions had anything to do with these cases? The article doesn't provide any evidence that any of these cases were, it just seems to present them as such to make the reader assume there is a connection, even without providing evidence of it.

Let's take a look at this one, for example:

Consider what happened to a woman who was nine months pregnant and having contractions when she arrived at the Falls Community Hospital in Marlin, Texas, in July 2022, a week after the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion. The doctor on duty refused to see her.

“The physician came to the triage desk and told the patient that we did not have obstetric services or capabilities,” hospital staff told federal investigators during interviews, according to documents. “The nursing staff informed the physician that we could test her for the presence of amniotic fluid. However, the physician adamantly recommended the patient drive to a Waco hospital.”

Investigators with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services concluded Falls Community Hospital broke the law.

Reached by phone, an administrator at the hospital declined to comment on the incident.

So according to this, they turned her away because... that hospital didn't have obstetric services or capabilities, and they recommended she go to one that did. What connection does this have to do with abortion regulation? If a hospital doesn't have obstetric services, then it can't actually provide obstetric services. Nor do I particularly see how abortion regulation would have caused them to turn her away, given the fact she wasn't trying to get one. Now, the article does claim that "investigators" concluded it broke the law, but isn't clear about what it means by that. So it ultimately doesn't offer evidence that abortion regulation had anything to do with it.

But even if abortion regulation was at fault, it makes no sense--as the article is insinuating--to try to blame the overturn of Roe v. Wade for this case. The laws in Texas one week after the overturn of Roe v. Wade were the same laws as they were prior to its overturn (they did earlier pass a "trigger law" which would take effect in the event of a Roe v. Wade overturn, but it was set to be put into place a month after the overturn, so one week after would have had no effect). And it should further be noted that the woman was 9 months pregnant; even prior to the Roe overturn, most regulations on abortion that far into pregnancy had been regarded as constitutional.

So we have a case that it offers no real evidence had anything to do with abortion regulation, and doesn't seem like it could have had anything to do with the overturn of Roe given that (1) no new laws had been put into effect yet, and (2) even under the prior Supreme Court jurispudence, Texas could have had regulation or even bans for abortions on pregnancy that far in prior to the overturn anyway.

I know this is just one of the cases the article offered, but given all of the issues I see with holding this up as an example, it makes me immediately more suspicious of the other examples it offers, which it also is extremely short on offering evidence had anything to do with abortion regulation, let alone the Roe overturn.

essentialsaltes said:

Most of the hospitals aren't talking publicly. If AP is right that the frequency has increased since Roe was overturned, that provides an intriguing correlation if not causation. [It would help if the AP got all the relevant files related to its FOIA request, and not just some of them.]

well, according to the doctor according to the hospital staff

But EMTALA requires emergency rooms to medically screen and treat everybody, even if a further transfer is required.

EMTALA is a federal law enacted in 1986 to ensure that patients have access to emergency medical care regardless of their ability to pay. 24 EMTALA requires that any patient who presents to an ED is offered a medical screening exam. 25 The medical screening exam must be performed to determine whether an emergency medical condition exists. 26 An emergency medical condition is defined under EMTALA as “a condition manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including severe pain) such that the absence of immediate medical attention could reasonably be expected to result in placing the individual’s health (or the health of an unborn child) in serious jeopardy, serious impairment to bodily functions, or serious dysfunction of bodily organs.” 27 If an emergency medical condition is present, then a physician must provide either stabilizing care within the capacity of the hospital or risk-minimizing medical treatment and an appropriate transfer to another medical facility if such stabilizing care is not available. 28 It is important to note that the Supreme Court has previously held that the motive behind a transfer does not matter when determining whether a transfer of care is within the bounds of EMTALA.

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We also have 10 million people, many pregnant or trying, with the belief that a child will anchor them here. They have little or no money for prenatal care so emergency room visits to the wrong hospital explains a lot. When alternative explanations are possible I'd prefer to find out causes before jumping to any one conclusion.