Rewire.news, an online magazine, working with the Guttmacher Institute, has uncovered an alarming trend. Middle American public hospitals are letting pregnant women progress to the brink of death before providing them with abortions. Rewire.news provides several examples of this practice (or malpractice).
A woman four months pregnant was so sick she couldn’t walk when she arrived at a public Texas hospital. She had experienced heart failure during her last pregnancy, and risk of death from cardiac arrest was increasing. The hospital denied her an abortion because she was not dying at the moment.
Another woman was at risk for complications that included a hysterectomy and hemorrhaging. The hospital in this case ruled that these were not imminently life-threatening, and that sometimes people lived with these conditions. They refused the request for an abortion.
Yet other women hover at the edge of death, while hospital administrators wait for a woman to run a fever, indicating that she is in sepsis, so that they can be certain that the woman will die if they don’t give her an antibiotic. These hospitals are fanatically over-applying already extreme laws.
Thirteen states prohibit abortion in public facilities except when the pregnant woman’s life is in danger (link) .
Pregnant women face even more draconian laws in other countries. Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Vatican City (no surprise there), and Malta all ban abortion with no exceptions at all. If a pregnant woman dies of something they could have cured, too bad unless someone can show that the fetus wouldn’t have been harmed.
El Salvador treats pregnant women with special cruelty. (link) In May, an attempt at reform went down to tragic defeat. The proposed change was to allow abortion when a pregnant woman’s life is in danger or when an underage girl is impregnated by a rapist.
National Right to Life, one of the oldest “pro-life” organizations in the US cheered this defeat. (link) What these “pro-lifers” have shown through this celebration is that they care not a whit for the life of the pregnant woman. Nor do they show any concern for traumatized girls. Fetus uber alles is their motto.