Woman with Cancerous Pregnancy Was Told to Wait in Parking Lot Until She Was 'Crashing'

[Nevilledog]

https://jezebel.com/woman-with-cancerous-pregnancy-was-told-to-wait-in-park-1850375358

Jaci Statton, a 25-year-old mother of three based in Central Oklahoma, was expecting her fourth child when she began feeling dizzy, weak, and especially nauseous toward the end of February. By mid-March, she experienced an episode of heavy bleeding, and she and her husband rushed to an emergency room, where they learned she had a nonviable, molar pregnancy—which occurs when an embryo has too many chromosomes and can result in the developing tissue becoming cancerous. In most cases, the condition is benign—but in 15% of cases, including Statton’s, molar pregnancies can be cancerous.

Speaking to NPR for a story published on Tuesday, Statton recalled traveling to numerous hospitals to seek an emergency dilation and curettage (or D&C) abortion procedure—the treatment for her life-threatening condition. Her emergency room doctor told her she was at risk of hemorrhage and even death, but that the hospital couldn’t provide treatment. Over the course of a week, she was transferred to three different hospitals. The last hospital instructed Statton to wait in the parking lot for her condition to worsen before they could legally treat her, she claimed. “They said, ‘The best we can tell you to do is sit in the parking lot, and if anything else happens, we will be ready to help you. But we cannot touch you unless you are crashing in front of us or your blood pressure goes so high that you are fixing to have a heart attack,’” Statton told NPR.

Oklahoma currently has three active abortion bans, which have conflicting exceptions and guidelines around medical emergencies in which abortion is appropriate, reproductive rights advocacy groups explained in a new study published Tuesday. Under these laws, abortion providers are threatened with prison time. As a result, many hospitals in the state have expressed confusion about whether and under what circumstances they can offer emergency abortion care: The study surveyed 34 hospitals in the state on their policies surrounding pregnancy complications and emergency abortion care. Per its findings, four hospitals disclosed that doctors must seek approval to provide emergency abortions; 14 hospitals were unable to provide clear answers about whether they even had an approval process for emergency abortions; and three of the hospitals said they wouldn’t provide abortion under any circumstances.

“These devastating findings from Oklahoma are consistent with accounts we are hearing from patients and health care professionals in other abortion ban states,” Risa Kaufman, director of U.S. human rights at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told Jezebel in a statement. “These bans undermine the ability and freedom of patients and their providers to make safe, evidence-based health care decisions.”

*snip*

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[gratuitous]

2. Legislators practicing medicine, forcing doctors to practice law

Such a wonderful arrangement, and the best part is the second class status forced on women who risk jail or worse if they have the effrontery to choose their own health care.

[Mosby]

3. So lawyers make the decisions.

And the doctors are too cowardly to challenge them.

Sounds about right.

[Hekate]

4. Doctors are threatened with prison & loss of license if someone thinks they guessed wrong

They are between a rock and a hard place themselves.

I hope every politician and preacher responsible for this horror show gets everything they deserve.

[treestar]

22. this one is nonviable

I'd be comfortable doing it. but the article doesn't quote the exact law. Still a pregnancy that unviable should satisfy even RWNJ law requirements.

[Hekate]

28. See, that's the problem. "Nonviable" used to mean "incapable of sustaining life outside the womb"

…before the fanatics got hold of it. Roe v Wade actually concerned itself with issues like viability (abortion at will for the first trimester; then with increasing restrictions for the second trimester; then in late pregnancy for utter disasters, and there are so few abortions in very late pregnancy that nationally you can practically count them on your fingers)— and as you know by now the fanatics tell everybody that Roe allowed and even encouraged abortion up to the point of birth.

When the Dobbs decision came down and allegedly threw the matter to the 50 states, what it meant was that there would be 50 sets of laws. There is no uniformity. There is no agreement.

Politicians without a shred of medical training are writing laws that will result in the actual deaths of actual women. They babble on about “heartbeats” at a state of fetal development where there is no heart, just an electrical pulse. They babble about “heartbeats” when the fetus is about dead, will not survive, and the woman is literally bleeding out.

Doctors actually know what needs to be done and they have actual medical protocols. But the laws are being written by politicians. I’ve read 2 articles about this particular case today — iirc it was the ultrasound technician who told the doc he couldn’t abort this bleeding cancer because the technician “thought there was a heartbeat.”

It used to just be Catholic hospitals you didn’t want to take your wife to — now it is 15 entire states and counting.

[Freddie]

9. Cowardly?

Would you risk jail time, a huge fine and loss of your professional license if you knew RWNJ NON-DOCTORS were judging your decisions?

[Mosby]

13. Yeah, I would.

If I was a doctor, I would not accept lawyers and politicians making decisions for me. I certainly wouldn't, under any circumstances, request that patients sit in a parking lot until they get sicker. How does that not violate their professional ethics?

Why didn't this guy just follow the law?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kevorkian

He stood up for what was right, he's a hero and will never be forgotten.

[Freddie]

18. The state took away their "ethics"

Sorry but you cannot blame the doctor who has everything to lose if the state decides the woman’s life was not in “enough” danger.

[Bettie]

12. Most hospitals these days are owned by private equity firms

or the Catholic church.

The first group is risk averse and will do anything for the bottom line, not so much for patients.

The second is, well, the Catholic church.

And the doctors face loss of license, malpractice suits, and possible prison time in a lot of states (not sure if OK is one of those).

[Meowmee]

24. It's time to go after hospitals

Refusing treatment in emergency situations like this.

[Baitball Blogger]

5. Here's a thought. Leave Oklahoma if you're pregnant.

Last edited Tue Apr 25, 2023, 08:09 PM - Edit history (1)

[SharonClark]

8. Not everyone can pick up and leave a state.

[Sky Jewels]

15. Really?

People who have jobs, other kids, look after their parents, etc. should just pack up and leave?

[Ferrets are Cool]

6. 3rd world countries don't even put up with shit like this.

Or I assume they don't if they can find a hospital.

[SharonClark]

7. The doctors should call the Governor

and key legislators - ask them if they can save the woman’s life.

[EndlessWire]

29. In California, you used to be

required, by law, to request help all the way up to the administrator of the hospital before you would have exhausted your chain of command, so to speak.

[electric_blue68]

10. Terrorizing, and Life Threatening Our Women sisters in Red States.

[GuppyGal]

11. Can people sue over this? Like sue the state or something? nt

[Freddie]

19. There's a lawsuit in Texas right now

6 women who had unreasonable suffering and came close to death because of their laws.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

14. Every such report should be sent to the Subversive 6 on the Extreme Cult

Graphic pictures should be sent, too.

[Sky Jewels]

16. "If only these people knew."

Oh, they know. They just don't care.

Being extremist far-right fascists is much more important to them.

[Evolve Dammit]

17. No words. Just anger

[niyad]

20. FUCK EVERY SINGLE GODDAMNED WOMAN-HATER WHO GOT US HERE.

[TexasBushwhacker]

21. What part of "non-viable" do they not get?

She could have died and left her 3 children motherless.

[Rebl2]

26. They know

what it means and they don’t care. They hate women apparently.

[Maru Kitteh]

32. 1. They get it but it doesn't matter. 2.The people who

are passing these laws do not care about her or those kids. Just like in Texas.

[TexasBushwhacker]

36. Maybe we should all send them pictures of molar pregnancies

Warning - not for folks with weak stomachs.

[Maru Kitteh]

37. It's the politicians that need those photos, not the medical community

And boy howdy are you right. Not for weak stomachs.

[Meowmee]

23. This is essentially murder

Refusing to treat someone… start suing, charging the hospitals etc.

[Rebl2]

25. Agreed

[Maru Kitteh]

33. Most red states make it VERY, VERY difficult to sue any part of the medical industry. nt

[Meowmee]

34. It's nearly impossible in any state here, for any reason.

In NY you can’t sue on behalf of an estate in civil suits, you need a lawyer to do it. But yes that sounds right, even harder there.

But people still need to try.

[AllyCat]

27. Republicans are NOT pro-life.

[DFW]

35. This is what I have been saying for years.

I was once with an anti-abortion-rights Republican idiot and two women from my company at lunch in Dallas. This must have been thirty years ago. He was crowing about how "pro-life" he was, blah blah. His dad was a former minister or pastor, or whatever (he was later convicted of theft and tossed out on his ear). I got tired of this, as he was in his early twenties and clearly just repeating some drivel from his dad.
I asked him, "Do you eat meat?"
He said, "sure."
I asked him, "Do you support the death penalty?"
He said, "yes I do."
I said, "then you're not pro-life. You are a pro-death person who opposes abortion rights, that's all."
He stared, couldn't come up with an answer, and the two women beamed.

I despise the term "Pro-Life," because it it is used so unbelievably often by people who are no such thing. Walking into a church no more makes you a Christian than walking into a garage makes you a car. It's still true after all these years.

[EndlessWire]

30. Sometimes patients show up

in a hospital clearly needing care, but for some reason they refuse care. And, yet they come in anyway. What docs can do is wait for the patient to fall out, become unconscious, and then treat them with what they need to save their life. This is decades old practice, not new, and just a sneaky way to get to actually help the patient.

This situation is just bizarre. Patient wants treatment but can't get it. Shame on those that passed these laws. May you never need help like that, from a doc that you have threatened on to ruin their life just so you can execute a notion of superior morality on them and their patients.

I don't really understand why they weren't allowed to sit inside the hospital, if they wanted to wait. Maybe the legalities are now so screwed up that the potential patient had to be farther than arm's length away. That's so utterly cruel, just barbaric. Poor couple.

People never think that it might be their turn. People always think their chances are better than others and they can pull off never needing care.

[sarcasmo]

31. This isn't health care, this is chaos.