A Texas Woman Died After Waiting 40 Hours for Miscarriage Care
A Texas Woman Died After Waiting 40 Hours for Miscarriage Care
Josseli Barnica is one of at least two pregnant Texas women who died after doctors delayed emergency care. She’d told her husband that the medical team said it couldn’t act until the fetal heartbeat stopped.
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.
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.
175Many noted a striking similarity to the case of Savita Halappavanar, a 31-year-old woman who died of septic shock in 2012 after providers in Ireland refused to empty her uterus while she was miscarrying at 17 weeks. When she begged for care, a midwife told her, “This is a Catholic country.” The resulting investigation and public outcry galvanized the country to change its strict ban on abortion.
But in the wake of deaths related to abortion access in the United States, leaders who support restricting the right have not called for any reforms.
My country's aptitude for remaining entirely unmoved by preventable tragedies that utterly upend political trajectories in other nations has become one of our most globally defining traits.
130Pro 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.
53Leaving Children without a Mother while also killing the Fetus is called being PRO LIFE and PROTECTING THE CHILDREN!
45I 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?
36Both 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
34Texas politicians and anti-abortion death cultists murdered this poor woman.
32That's bad.
Republican ideas made into law killed her.
23Pro-lifers doing a fantastic job of killing people. Truly horrific.
20This headline pissed me off before I realized it was abortion-ban related. Now I’m fucking livid.
20we can't tolerate this. these supposed "pro-life" policies are killing, literally murdering women.
19Omfg I get it now... "All life is sacred" as in all life must feel the fearful embrace of God.
I was gonna put a "/s" at the end, but I'm honestly not too sure anymore... Seems like that's exactly what they want. Like what's the point if not the cruelty?
15Dear pro lifers. This is her blood. It's on your hands now. It's not the first blood that got spilled unnecessarily, and it won't be the last. And it's on your hands. YOU made this happen.
11In 2006, when I was about 6 years, my mother, sadly, suffered a miscarriage. It devestated our family. This also marked a turning point in my life as my parents divorced not long after. It's stories like these that make me wonder what would have happened to my dear mother after her miscarriage if the same fundamentalist theocrats were in power then. Would they have arrested her? Would she have died under the same atrocious conditions that Ms. Barnica had to suffer? What will happen to my wife if, goodness forbid, something similar happens to her? This story highlights why, five days from now, you MUST vote. We have make that incidents like these don't repeat. Don't just do it for your sake. Do it for the sake of those dearest and nearest to you.
9Just republican shit.
7This situation is so insane that gut punching a pregnant woman could've saved her life. IT IS NOT WHAT I SUGGEST AT ALL. But as medical team didn't kill off the dangerous and doomed unbred for they feared the liability coming from theae weird laws, I guess, that could cross the mind of a father at least once*.
* If he was someone as fucked up as me, I guess.
7“Those damn immigrants taking all our healthcare.”
6I can hear the church lady's now, "omg that's awful, how did this happen???????" Oh well, gods plan.
3Ctrl-F's for "Merrick Garland"
-4Texas state law allows abortion in cases of medical emergencies. The hospital was absolutely in the wrong here.
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