Josseli Barnica grieved the news as she lay in a Houston hospital bed on Sept.
3, 2021: The sibling she’d dreamt of giving her daughter would not survive this pregnancy.
The fetus was on the verge of coming out, its head pressed against her dilated cervix; she was 17 weeks pregnant and a miscarriage was “in progress,” doctors noted in hospital records. At that point, they should have offered to speed up the delivery or empty her uterus to stave off a deadly infection, more than a dozen medical experts told ProPublica.
But when Barnica’s husband rushed to her side from his job on a construction site, she relayed what she said the medical team had told her: “They had to wait until there was no heartbeat,” he told ProPublica in Spanish. “It would be a crime to give her an abortion.”
For 40 hours, the anguished 28-year-old mother prayed for doctors to help her get home to her daughter; all the while, her uterus remained exposed to bacteria.
Three days after she delivered, Barnica died of an infection.
Barnica is one of at least two Texas women who ProPublica found lost their lives after doctors delayed treating miscarriages, which fall into a gray area under the state’s strict abortion laws that prohibit doctors from ending the heartbeat of a fetus.
Neither had wanted an abortion, but that didn’t matter. Though proponents insist that the laws protect both the life of the fetus and the person carrying it, in practice, doctors have hesitated to provide care under threat of prosecuti…
The company did not respond to a detailed list of questions about Barnica’s care.
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I'll just point out that the treating physicians are legally incapable of publicly defend themselves by explaining their treatment decisions in cases like this. So, we are left with hearsay or speculation as to why they treated as they did.
@anonymousduck1yr1Y
You cannot say you are "pro-life" when you sentence others to death.
It’s ironic how the term “pro-life” is often used to justify policies that endanger actual, living people. History has shown us repeatedly that when medical decisions are restricted by law rather than left to professionals, the consequences can be deadly. Remember Savita Halappanavar in Ireland? She died of septicemia in 2012 after being denied an abortion, even though her life was at risk. Ireland’s restrictive abortion laws were overturned soon after because people realized that protecting life means protecting *all* life—not just potential life. You can't claim to value life if you're willing to sacrifice women in the process.
America is not a civilized country. This sounds like something from the medieval times, not a modern country. Bear in mind, doctors knew this would happen and had the ability to very simply prevent it, but sacrificed her on the alter of evangelical Christian Taliban beliefs.
@HeronPenelopeGreen1yr1Y
I have said it before and will say it again: these laws will PLUMMET the already declining birth rate. If they think outlawing abortion will raise the birth rate, they are mistaken. When pregnancy becomes the most dangerous thing a woman can do - how many will choose it?
@8G9HWCCCentre-Left1yr1Y
Either this story is bull **** , or doctors and hospitals are killing women in a tantrum over abortion laws that don't apply to cases like this.
If the latter, round up the doctors and hospital administrators and throw them in the deepest hole in the Texas prison system.
This is what happened in Ireland to make them change their abortion policy. A woman became septic while waiting and died.
And a nation said no more.
This is Trump's America. He took us back far enough. We are not going back one more step. Josseli's life mattered.
@Renaldo-MoonGreen 1yr1Y
A perfectly preventable death, yet doctors chose to wait to save the life of the mother over a baby that was going to die anyways.
Josseli Barnica’s death was preventable.
She reportedly presented at the hospital with an inevitable and incomplete miscarriage at 17 weeks gestation. Texas’ pro-life law calls on doctors to act in circumstances like hers.
Allowing a woman to die when her life could have been saved is both a crime and a violation of every doctor's oath.
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