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Forced to Carry a Dead Fetus: Medical Malpractice?
When I hear stories about doctors showing such poor decision-making skills, I have to wonder how they got through medical school. I am assuming, at the very least, that this story is true. And I also I wonder if these doctors are making political decisions about the SCOTUS ruling on Roe v. Wade or if they are genuinely confused. Either way, these situations should not be happening.
The most horrific story I read was of a woman who was forced to carry the remains of a miscarriage in her body for two weeks. Her doctor refused to remove the dead fetus, due to the changes of the law in Texas, even though the fetus showed no heartbeat on the ultrasound. You can read the entire story here.
The timid doctors who are supposedly afraid of breaking the law for removing a dead fetus appear to be unconcerned that the pregnant woman might die if the remains are not removed:
Dr. Lillian Schapiro, who has been an OB-GYN in Atlanta for more than 30 years, said carrying around a dead fetus is also dangerous to the mother.
‘She can develop an infection that can make her sterile and never able to have children again,’ she said.
Or even worse. ‘When the baby dies inside, the baby starts to release parts of its tissue that can get into the mother’s blood supply. It can cause organ failure. It can cause death,’ Schapiro said.
And let’s not forget that the threat of lawsuits (which is often present in the medical field) hangs over everyone’s head.
So what should be done in light of these confused doctors?
John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, said he considers any obstacle facing abortion patients to be a ‘very serious situation.’ He attributed such problems to a ‘malfunction in the communication of the law, not the law itself.’ adding ‘I have seen reports of doctors being confused, but it is a failure of our medical associations to provide clear guidance.’
Were there no guidelines for dealing with miscarriage up to this point? There have been guidelines that could have been followed until these doctors could clear up their confusion:
Sarah Prager, MD, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said in a typical early miscarriage, when cardiac activity has stopped, patients should be offered three options for tissue removal.
D&Cs are recommended when patients are bleeding heavily, have anemia, have problems with blood clotting or have certain conditions that make them medically fragile, Dr. Prager said. Some other patients also choose to have a D&C, finding them emotionally easier than a lengthy procedure at home.
Another option is medication – usually mifepristone, which weakens the membrane lining the uterus and softens the cervix, followed by misoprostol, which causes contractions. These pills are used for abortion medicine.
The third option is “anticipatory management”: waiting for the tissue to pass on its own, which can take weeks. It is unsuccessful for 20 percent of patients, who then require surgery or medication, said Dr. Prager, co-author of Abortion Management, Guidelines for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
When possible, patients should be allowed to choose the method because the lack of choice adds to the trauma of losing the desired pregnancy, doctors and patients said.
If a woman has experienced a miscarriage, the medications listed obviously would be used to remove the miscarriage remains, not to abort a living fetus.
Frankly, I think most of the protests listed here are political, not practical. We have no way of knowing which of the doctors described are pro-abortion or pro-life, but we are talking about miscarriages. And for those doctors who are concerned about not risking the life of the mother, don’t you think they might transcend their political beliefs and take ethical, practical, and life-saving action?
Published in Healthcare
[redacted for rudeness]
What about Texas Heartbeat Law is so hard to understand?
A friend who is an ER doc in Portsmouth says they have – mostly youngish and some without “documentation” – women who arrive reporting they are having a miscarriage but wont tell them if they’ve taken any abortion drugs. May or may not had a primary care physician. So they have an incomplete history. Some leave.
Matthew Thomas.
On the substance of the issue, it does seem unlikely that this would be necessary in performing an ultrasound to detect a baby, living or otherwise. I have witnessed these.
So do an ultrasound. See if the baby is alive. If he or she has died, then you can’t kill him or her.
I belatedly read the linked article, and it reads much like a screed from a pro-abortion apologist.
So do you think they made it up? Aside from your impressions?
I see that some of special friends have shown up.
My point is that doctors are by nature conservative, and the new Texas law allows people to sue willy-nilly will have an unintended consequence.
But folks, there’s no need to be nasty.
Stop it.
Carrying a dead fetus is not especially risky, but it ain’t good. There should have been standards of care in place for such an obvious and frequent situation and those will be referred to when/if this case comes up before a court or a board. I doubt that the standards of care were, ‘wheeee, abortion is legal so whatevs!’, but I could be wrong on this.
Rather than be distracted by the attempted conspiracy to hijack, let’s continue with the topic out of respect for the O/P.
Others above have commented on this, but suggesting that creating the possibility for an obviously unfounded lawsuit is a problem with the law is ridiculous. There are many, many statutes that could similarly be critiqued if they authorize a private right of action.
If that was your point, you didn’t make it very well.
Even if there isn’t a valid cause of action in civil cases, they can still be filed, and cost the “Defendant” time and money. That there isn’t a valid cause of action would be determined by a judge, not by the clerk with whom cases are filed.
Your question about honest data reminded me that I’d been trying to find some that I knew were out there. Finally found a good source, WaPo of all places. This is on the “thousands of women” dying from illegal abortions. It provides a solid debunking of the numbers usually thrown around. It’s an article link worth keeping in your back pocket. Also, it’s worth looking up Bernard Nathanson, the early abortion doctor who eventually became anti by realizing that life began at conception and they were aborting a human. Here’s a comment on his obituary from the British Medical Journal, titled “How the abortion movement started with deceit and lies.” Nathanson published a commentary against abortion in the New England Journal of Medicine back in 1974. I’ve been trying to get a pdf version of it, but it’s behind a subscribers’ only paywall. I though I could get it through my work email address, but apparently not that article. I’d love a copy if any of the docs are subscribers. Else, I may have to go to the library stacks and photocopy!
Might it be possible, as is the case with most stories these days, that, given a few more days, more information and facts pertaining to the doctor involved and the decisions that were made will become available and, as such, we will be able to respond with more clarity?
Our media is atrocious. We cannot trust it. Every story has a political purpose. Wait for the back story.
As an in-house lawyer for a few corporations I was often explaining to company executives that there is no way to prevent people from filing unfounded lawsuits. The executives kept wanting guarantees that if they did X in compliance with the law the company wouldn’t get sued. But that can’t be guaranteed without also blocking people with legitimate complaints.
There are several areas in which the law has created private causes of action in order to encourage private citizens to help correct wrongdoing (private suits for financial fraud against the government (“qui tam”) is the one I have had the most contact with), and all of them carry the risk that a frivolous lawsuit may be filed. The lawmakers have to decide which is more valuable – encouraging private citizens to correct wrongdoing or avoiding the possibility of frivolous lawsuits.
There is extremism on both sides of the issue.
As someone who was almost killed outright while miscarrying, due to a young ER resident deciding I could only have been hemorrhaging as violently as I was because I had attempted a self-abortion, I will never forget how immovable stances by the “Christian” Right can take life rather than protect it.
Had the young resident asked what meds, if any I was prescribed, he would have discovered I was on a circulation-boosting drug, which is the logical explanation for why my hemorrhaging was over the top. (He also never asked when I knew for certain I was pregnant – which was noon of the day before.)
Anyway this man had a woman nearly bleeding to death under his care, and at the time i was too woozy to carry on a coherent conversation.
That resident thought about how Illinois law in the early 1970’s was quite strict: should a hospital admit a patient who had performed an abortion on herself, the hospital would lose its license.
The doctor could have thought about the meaning my life had for me, or the catastrophe his life held should I be admitted and then the hospital lost its license. He chose the later.
In any case, at 4Am my first husband and I were sent home with a pill bottle of meds that were supposed to end the bleeding. They didn’t.
Luckily for me my mom called my house and discovered that I was home, bleeding to death. In 45 minutes she drove to the house, helped my spouse load me into the car and then had me meet up with my childhood pediatrician at a So Chicago hospital. A D & C was immediately performed.
Over the years I have had “devout” Christians – always men – tell me their take on this matter: that at the moment my mom and spouse put me in the hospital wheelchair, I should have propelled my semi-conscious body out of that chair, knelt on the ground to offer my life to Jesus, at which time Our Lord would have restored the fetus to full life and healed me immediately.
Since I didn’t do that, I was guilty of agreeing to an unnecessary abortion! (Never mind my doctor’s analysis that had I not arrived at the hospital when I did, I really didn’t have much longer.)
As I said earlier, I would greatly appreciate hearing if the facts have changed.
I do feel compelled to add a personal note. To those of you who question the veracity of the story, I don’t blame you a bit. Based on the behavior of the media and the medical profession, we have every reason to believe the story is at least questionable if not completely made up. I realize that in response to some of your comments, I might have sounded a little defensive, and I’m sorry for that; I don’t think your skepticism was directed at me personally.
At the same time, I think it’s helpful to consider that confirmation bias against these stories could also be at play. That’s hard to do given the level of deception and misinformation we’ve had to tolerate. But I think all of us can try to do our best to look at stories according to our best judgment, and I will trust in that possibility.
Of course it wasn’t. It was directed at the doctor who supposedly doesn’t know what an abortion is.
Again, something smells really strange here…
Haven’t read the article(s), just the post and comments. Having had the experience of 3 miscarriages (and D&Cs) and having lots of medical people in the family, I’d say it’s utter rubbish. The whole point of abortion is to kill an unwanted child, whether it is 4 weeks, 4 months, or 9 months. If the baby is already dead, it’s not an abortion!
This doctor isn’t self-protective. He/she has a political agenda — making a point at the expense of the mother’s wellbeing, if true.
The doctors in my family (now retired) described the massive insurance premiums they (and their group) had to pay to cover the inevitable frivolous lawsuits in our litigious society. Their practices settled most suits since it just isn’t worth the hassle (or expense) to go to court. A significant percentage of medical treatment is done for “free” on this basis. Easily 10%. Probably way more, depending on the specialty.
OB/GYNs would have some the highest malpractice premiums of any specialty I would guess, since people expect a perfect baby and sue the pants off of any doctor who doesn’t deliver one. And do you suppose the doctor would be more concerned about the long arm of the law reaching out to punish him/her for a suspected “abortion” or the death of a woman due to negligence? Obviously the latter.
This story is garbage.
As with the 10-year-old who was allegedly raped and allegedly had to go to Indiana for an abortion because she couldn’t in Ohio. Of course, she could have in Ohio, but that didn’t fit the narrative. Nor did it fit the narrative that the rapist was an illegal immigrant. Nor did it fit the narrative that her mother is in a relationship with the rapist and wants it all swept under the rug.
It all sounded questionable from the start. So my recommendation is to wait a few days before weighing in. Often the initial narrative gets so many holes poked in it that the media wishes to bury it a few days later.
Yup.
Been there. Thusly why we have so many woke practices in corporations. CEO: “I’ll do anything to reduce the chances of a suit even if we haven’t done anything wrong.” HR: “I recommend 15 different equity and inclusion initiatives and major donation to Black Lives Matter and the Human Rights Campaign.” CEO: “Do it.”
On occasion, whether those who created the law intended for there to be a private right of action is even a threshold issue in a case. So one doesn’t even know going in.
No. I have opinions right now!!!
btw, is the ‘morning after pill’ still being sold everywhere?
Haven;t read comments yet, but this sounds like a political protest all the way. I learned a magnificent phrase, “malicious compliance”. That’s what this sounds like.
I didn’t know that a hospital couldn’t treat someone who attempted an abortion, how widespread was that?
It’s called “malicious compliance”. You define the law in your mind to be the most restrictive you can imagine and then comply with that to demonstrate how bad it is. It happened in the 10-yr old’s rape/pregnancy case. There was a simple solution that the Ohio doctor could have followed: contact the local DA or seek a declaratory judgment that would have cleared the physician of any wrongdoing. But that did not support the narrative of “no Roe v Wade results in enslaved womyn”.