You're viewing a single thread.
This was a string of malpractices. The Missouri law didn't prohibit an abortion in this case, but it was incorrectly judged by the doctors/their legal staff. The law allows abortions in case of a medical emergency - which this was.
From your link:
"At the time of the discussion, Farmer was medically stable, with some vaginal bleeding that was not heavy. “Therefore contrary to the most appropriate management based (sic) my medical opinion, due to the legal language of MO law, we are unable to offer induction of labor at this time,” the report quotes the specialist as saying."
So yes, the law did prevent an abortion and endangered her life.
She is suing because she expected an exception for herself.
According to the HHS secretary:
“While many state laws have recently changed, it’s important to know that the federal EMTALA requirements have not changed, and continue to require that healthcare professionals offer treatment, including abortion care, that the provider reasonably determines is necessary to stabilize the patient’s emergency medical condition,” Becerra wrote.
“The hospital’s noncompliance creates a reasonable expectation that an adverse outcome resulting in serious injury, harm, impairment, or death will occur to current or future individuals in similar situations if not immediately corrected,” the report states.
“Although her doctors advised her that her condition could rapidly deteriorate, they also advised that they could not provide her with the care that would prevent infection, hemorrhage, and potentially death because, they said, the hospital policies prohibited treatment that could be considered an abortion,” Becerra wrote. “This was a violation of the EMTALA protections that were designed to protect patients like her.”
Farmer suffered what doctors call preterm premature rupture of membranes — her water broke, followed by vaginal bleeding, abdominal pressure and cramping, the Springfield News-Leader reported in an October article. Doctors told her she would be unlikely to carry the child to term, and doing so increased her chances of infection or other severe outcome.
Medical errors are a serious issue in the US, harming over 400,000 people and killing over 200,000 in a single year. This is a clear-cut example of a harmful medical error.
It could be very easily argued that "could deteriorate rapidly" is not a medical emergency, and therefore does not meet the requirements of the MO or federal laws to allow for inducing labor or abortion.
Given the overzealous rhetoric from state officials, I understand the hospital and doctor's reluctance to provide care. We are fucking ourselves.
If the "overzealous rhetoric" had any teeth, any of the doctors who had performed one of the hundreds of abortions in Missouri since Dobbs would have been arrested. They haven't.
It's has the intended teeth; health care for women denied yet again.
And now we get to the real issue.
federal EMTALA requirements have not changed, and continue to require that healthcare professionals offer treatment, including abortion care, that the provider reasonably determines is necessary to stabilize the patient’s emergency medical condition
At the time of the discussion, Farmer was medically stable, with some vaginal bleeding that was not heavy.
Sounds like she was not experiencing an emergency medical condition that would have required stabilization. It could have become more severe, which explains why conventional care would have been abortion, but it was not, at the moment of presentation.
Sure would be nice if they would just let the physicians practice medicine, without having to second guess which law takes precedence.
There's no need to second guess. The law is explicit. Furthermore, she had been seen by several hospitals and they all denied her treatment. The situation was exacerbated by their negligence.
In your opinion. Unless you're a Missouri judge, that opinion is not useful.
Your opinion matters as much as mine, the HHS secretary said they're in the wrong, and it would have been 100% legal by the letter of the law.
Yeah but I can't blame the doctors for refusing, when in doubt a right wing jury without medical training will decide if it was an emergency or not, and your freedom depends on their verdict.
It's either provide the treatment, or people become gravely injured or die. She quite nearly died as a result of the mistreatment. We can't predict juries, but I haven't seen any cases of doctors being arrested and convicted of providing an abortion.
But that is the explicit threat. That is what law makers are saying they are setting as precedent.
But the law explicitly says there's an exception for emergencies and there's no guarantee that they'll be charged. In fact, there have been hundreds of abortions in Missouri alone since the ban. I wasn't able to find any instances of a doctor being criminally charged under these laws, but if you find one, it's in an extreme minority.
There’s no guarantee they will be charged is not the same as there is a guarantee they will not be charged. And that is the issue, the hospitals were directly threatened by republicans with jail time, and contradictory statements, as proof when she reached out to get clarification from the governor even he noped out when it mattered. Also remember that the doctors do not run the hospital, administrators and bean counters do.
Nobody has been charged so far. If they wanted to make an example of someone, it would have made far more sense to do it around when the law was passed. There's no Machiavellian scheme trying to trap doctors in unwinnable situations, this was an obvious case of medical error. Hundreds of thousands of other similar errors severe enough to cause harm or death happen every year.
There only has to be the threat. Because as long as hospitals are afraid to perform abortions the republicans win… well “win” in this case. We are just people arguing could have should have, when the hospital doctors recommended it, but the hospital with their lawyers and the fact they have been doing this as a profession was not as convinced as you seem to be.
Besides, is your argument the hospital was out to kill this lady specifically?
Any threat is entirely imagined. Nobody has been prosecuted for this. The law states it is legal. My argument is that either the hospital misunderstood the law in an honest error or they were more interested in covering their own butts than treating a patient in obvious need - in either case, they were wrong and should be held responsible.
Doctors swear an oath, "first, do no harm." So yes we can blame the doctors!
Doctors are supposed to behave ethically regardless of the law. This is not a new thing! Doctors providing appropriate treatment despite the law is a very fucking long tradition in medicine.
Doctors providing appropriate treatment despite the law is a very fucking long tradition in medicine.
It isn't. Name one time that happened.
"Do no harm" doesn't mean "risk your livelihood and freedom to perform an operation that a patient can get elsewhere".
What defines a medical emergency in rhe eyes of the law? How many hospitals are going to perform an abortion they deem a medical emergency only to be potentially sued by an AG who disagrees that it was medically necessary?
Missouri law has a definition of "emergency" here, which this situation fits. Also, if I tell my doctor friend Bob not to call 911 unless an emergency is happening, my other friend Tom starts having a seizure he believes is life-threatening, and Bob doesn't call 911, is that my fault or Bob's fault? If hospitals start getting sued en masse for these obvious mistakes, they'll probably be more likely to see reason. This is either a genuine error in reading the law or liability dodging.
What hospital is going to test the boundaries of what immediate or imminent risk to life in the eyes of the law? Especially with any government official salivating at the chance to punish any abortion care.
So if the law didn't exist there'd be nothing to misjudged...
Should we allow thievery by law because people might misunderstand that buying things isn't theft?
It's not even close to the same. Abortion laws shouldn't exist in the first place. The decision should be left up to the woman alone. All this law is doing is making providers worry about the consequences of performing one. A law against theft deters theft.... There is a purpose to that.
Why doesn't the baby get to decide what happens to it? Isn't its life important?