A woman experiencing bleeding was not admitted by doctors in Idaho until her fourth ER visit in one week, due to fear and confusion over the state's abortion ban.

Summary

An Idaho doctor testified that confusion over the state’s strict abortion bans left a miscarrying patient “passed around like a hot potato” as doctors avoided treating her out of fear of legal consequences.

The 14-week pregnant woman, suffering heavy bleeding and anemia, was denied care during three ER visits before being admitted against hospital rules, miscarrying, and requiring a blood transfusion.

The testimony is part of a lawsuit challenging Idaho’s abortion laws, which ban most abortions with few exceptions, leaving patients in dangerous situations without timely care.

  • ZaktorEnglish
    43·
    1 month ago

    “I was working with some amazing nurses and we decided as a team that we were going to break our hospital’s rules and admit her, even though she wasn’t 20 weeks pregnant because I just couldn’t send her home again and hope for the best,” Lyons said.

    More like this please. Fuck your hospital’s rules, make something up if you need to, this is someone’s life. Bureaucracy isn’t really very good at checking itself and a lot of rules get broken “by mistake”. If the rules are bad, don’t follow them. If anyone actually gets on your case, “I’m sorry, I guess I misremembered the policy and was worried about protecting the hospital from liability”.

    Employees on the front lines have a lot more power to grind dumb rules to dust than they think.