California is suing a Humboldt County hospital after a patient said she was denied an emergency abortion earlier this year even though she feared for her life because of the risks of an abortion.
Anna Nusslock, fifteen weeks pregnant with twins, was rushed to Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka in February due to pain and severe bleeding because her waters broke too soon, according to a lawsuit by the California AT. Gen. Rob Bonta filed against Catholic Hospital on Monday. The lawsuit accuses Providence Hospital of violating multiple California laws by denying Nusslock abortion care and seeks a court order to ensure that no other patients are denied emergency abortions .
At the hospital, Nuslock said she was diagnosed with premature rupture of the membranes of the amniotic sac — a dangerous complication for which abortion is a recommended treatment.
Doctors believed that one of the twins would not survive, and that the other had little chance. The lawsuit says they agreed that Nuslock needed an abortion as soon as possible to avoid infection or bleeding.
But Nuslock said she was told the abortion could not be performed due to “hospital policy” because her life was not at substantial risk and because “heart tones” could still be detected in one twin. A doctor, she said, suggested she be taken by helicopter to a hospital about 300 miles south in San Francisco and warned that she would die if she tried to make the nearly five-hour drive.
The lawsuit alleges that a nurse handed her a bucket full of towels to help with the bleeding, and that she gave birth to one of the twins at Mad River Community Hospital, located 12 miles away on California’s rural North Coast, and suffered bleeding. Happened.
“I’ll never forget seeing my doctor, tears streaming down my face, my heart shattered into a million pieces and I was just pleading with him, ‘Don’t let me die,'” Nusslock said at a news conference at the Attorney General’s said in. office in Sacramento on Monday. “My daughters deserved better, and I deserved better.”
The case highlights shortcomings in abortion care in California, home to the nation’s strongest reproductive rights protections for access to abortion. enshrined in the state constitutionEven after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to the procedure in 2022, resulting in abortion bans in Republican-led states.
“Here in California, where we’re proud to be the epitome of reproductive justice, we’ve got a hospital policy that’s reminiscent of the heartbeat laws in extremist red states,” Bonta said Monday. “Even in California, a champion for reproductive freedom, we are not immune from the practices we are seeing today, and we will not stand by as it happens.”
Bonta alleges that Providence Hospital violated California’s emergency services law – which mandates providing care in emergency rooms regardless of any ethical concerns of providers – as well as business discrimination laws and fraudulent business practices laws. Also violates.
A Providence spokesperson said the company is reviewing the lawsuit’s allegations.
“Providence is deeply committed to the health and well-being of women and pregnant patients and provides emergency services to all who come to our doors in accordance with state and federal law. “We are saddened by the experience with Nuslock earlier this year,” said Brian Kawasaki, director of national communications.
Religious Affiliated Hospital Cannot be forced to have an elective abortionBut California law requires emergency health care providers to provide medical services to patients “in danger of loss of life or serious injury or illness.”
The law makes no religious exceptions for abortion services when a hospital like Nuslock operates an emergency department.
Nuslock and her husband had been trying to have a child for years – saying “there was nothing more we wanted in this world than to be parents”. She experienced multiple miscarriages. After finding out she was pregnant with twins, she said they were completely optimistic. They bought matching outfits for the children; They decorated their nursery and dreamed of taking them to the pumpkin patch for holiday photos.
Once she recovered from the breakdown and emergency abortion her grief turned to anger, and she reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union asking what steps she could take to prevent other mothers from experiencing the same thing. The ACLU directed him to the Attorney General’s office.
“I’m here today to tell my story for one simple reason,” Nuslock said after standing behind the podium and taking a deep breath. “I don’t want others in my community to experience the same life-threatening trauma that I have experienced.” Bonta and his lawyers.
Bonta – who called Nuslock’s case “sad and infuriating” – urged the court to act as quickly as possible for Mad River Community Hospital, where Nuslock ultimately got her abortion, It plans to close its labor and distribution units next month.
“The next person in Anna’s situation will face the agonizing choice of risking a several-hour drive to another hospital or waiting until they are too close to death for Providence to intervene,” Bonta said.
