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.

  • Aviandelight @mander.xyz
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    1 month ago

    This is fucking barbaric. The hospital let her sit for 40 hours with a fetus hanging out of her uterus. Just take a moment to imagine what that alone must have felt like aside from the emotional horror of losing a pregnancy. We wouldn’t even imagine treating pets or livestock this way but it’s clear that these repugnant forced-birthers don’t consider women to be people. One little pill to speed up the labor that her body already decided was needed was all that was required to keep this woman alive. What’s the point of even having healthcare when we can’t rely on it.

    • Coach@lemmy.world
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      God. I agree. This is horrific. And we have the audacity to consider ourselves a first-world country. Texans should immediately take themselves to the state house to demand better. Our tax dollars pay for hospitals to treat us, not to kill us.

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      Not a lawyer, but I wonder if there a case to be made with letting a woman get an infection and die due to the fear of commiting a crime by killing the baby. In the end, two people died, but one could have survived.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    A texas woman didn’t die, a texas woman was murdered by the state’s ignorant, bigoted, christo-fascist policy - abbott, patrick, cruz, gohmert, that cock eyed AG and the rest of them along with every complicit texas republican voter… they all have blood on their cowardly hands.

    • Fester@lemm.ee
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      There’s always an acceptable number of deaths with the GOP. It’s just happens to be infinite when it comes to healthcare, pandemics, poverty, guns - basically anything that won’t result in punishing innocent brown people. In that case the number is extremely low.

    • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      Not only will they not care, they will dismiss it and joke about it. From the article (regarding a different woman who died from being denied life saving medical care):

      Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp called the reporting “fear mongering.” Former President Donald Trump has not weighed in — except to joke that his Fox News town hall on women’s issues would get “better ratings” than a press call where Thurman’s family spoke about their pain.

  • davidagain@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Vote Kamala Harris and your sisters, wives and daughters might stop dying for lack of health care when pregnant. Allow Trump to regain power and it will get much, much worse for the women you care about.

    • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      What is the course of action that you expect Kamala to take that would prevent this situation in Texas? And if you have one, why hasn’t Biden done it already?

      • Chapelgentry@lemmynsfw.com
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        1 month ago

        Who controls the House? That’s a better barometer of change but having a supportive president is paramount. Either have control of the house and overwhelming control of the Senate, or enough control of both that a friendly President signs the bill into law.

        Why hasn’t Biden done it already? Mike Johnson.

      • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Not actively, gleefully making things worse. Biden is doing this.

        Working to stack the Supreme Court, and triggering a constitutional crisis in the process because the Republican Senate will refuse confirmation, and the Supreme Court that was stacked with self-contradictory GOP bullshit will agree with them would be the interesting move that won’t happen because the Democrats are cowards and institutionalists rather than fascist monsters.

    • dessimbelackis@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Anti-choice is gaining more traction and is more accurate. Anti-choice or pro-death is more appropriate and logically consistent

  • Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Pro lifers kill again. They rate the right to live of potential life higher than someone who has been here for 28 years. Someone who left a husband and a child behind. I have to accept I hate pro lifers for the harm they cause. There is no justice in this world as long as these inhuman and barbaric laws are killing people. Real people, not potential people.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Republicans: “God’s will.”

    As long as there was no abortion, their view is she deserves it.

    • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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      The hospital’s hands are tied by dystopian laws - this is what “pro life” looks like.

      These are becoming way more common the more we let this right wing evil shit sink in.

        • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
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          Right, I don’t disagree with you, but there is no legal ground on which to sue the hospital. They acted as they were legally required, the law will be on their side. I’d say go after the politicians involved for wrongful death, if it weren’t for qualified immunity.

          Honestly, I just hope anyone able and willing to leave such shithole states are able to do so, although that’s obviously much easier than done. Their leadership has clearly failed them and does not care about them. :(

    • Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
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      The hospital was following Texas law. Any doctor who helped her would have been arrested.

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    Leaving Children without a Mother while also killing the Fetus is called being PRO LIFE and PROTECTING THE CHILDREN!

  • rez@lemmy.ml
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    What the actual fuck. This is horrendous.

    Pro-life crowd, I thought you were supposed to keep life, not end it.

    Now there’s a man who’s a widow, a child without a mother, and a lady who died all for literally nothing.

    Fuckin’ hell.

    • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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      Don’t blame America for this. Most of us want legal, safe abortion laws. It’s a disgruntled minority of hyper-religious whack jobs that have been handed outrageous power in our top court by a narcissistic sociopath that are to blame.

      Evangelicals Christians = American Taliban.

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    I see stories like this a lot and can’t believe it. My wife was in a similar situation and had to get an emergency dnc, and still came close to dying from sepsis.

    The doctors were so on it, we waited in the ER for a while because they were packed but as soon as they took her blood and realized what was going on she was in surgery within the hour.

    Our son want even 2 at the time. If we were 30 minutes west she would’ve died. It’s absolutely fucking wild.

    How could anyone think this is right?

  • 2ugly2live@lemmy.world
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    Both sides are the same. It can’t be any worse with the Republicans in office, so just don’t vote. That’ll show 'em. /s

  • Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
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    Someone should go to prison for life over this. Jesus Christmas.

    If you can’t see how wrong this is, you are a broken person.