woman diagnosed with rupturing ectopic pregnancy. TX hospital told her to go home and wait

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

An ectopic pregnancy put her life at risk. A Texas hospital refused to treat her.
The 25-year-old woman and her mother blame the state’s abortion ban for a delay in care that doctors say put her “in extreme danger of losing her life”



The law that has prohibited abortions in Texas since Roe v. Wade was overturned now explicitly allows doctors to treat ectopic pregnancies. But when doctors at Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital evaluated Norris-De La Cruz last week, they refused to terminate the pregnancy, saying there was some chance the pregnancy was still viable, Norris-De La Cruz recalled. Instead, they advised her and her mother to go home and wait, according to medical records reviewed by The Washington Post.

Norris-De La Cruz ultimately received emergency surgery about 24 hours later at a different hospital in the area, at which point her ectopic pregnancy had already started to rupture. The OB/GYN who performed the procedure said that, if Norris-De La Cruz had waited much longer, she would have been “in extreme danger of losing her life.”

“I was scared I was going to ... lose my entire reproductive system if they waited too long,” Norris-De La Cruz said in an interview two days after her surgery. “I knew it could happen at any moment.”

Her case highlights a chilling reality of post-Roe America: Medical exceptions to abortion bans have not stopped doctors from turning away patients with significant pregnancy complications, often with harrowing consequences. Their stories underscore the messy collision between abortion laws and medical diagnoses — and the struggles of doctors and hospitals to navigate what many say are inadequate legal protections to treat women with life-threatening conditions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/23/texas-woman-ectopic-pregnancy-abortion/

[Scrivener7]

1. Oh my God. That is a fucking death sentence.

[liberalhistorian]

82. Any so-called doctor

who refuses to properly treat a woman with an ectopic pregnancy and claims that the pregnancy is still viable should, at the very least, be permanently stripped of his or her medical license, if not criminally charged! It is very basic medical knowledge that ectopic pregnancies are NEVER viable, will very likely cause death if not properly treated, and that there is simply no way at this time to reimplant the embryo in the uterus, like too many dipshit repubs seem to believe.

If an actual medical doctor refuses to acknowledge this, then they should be permanently barred from ever practicing medicine again. Period.

I'm reminded of an idiotic Ohio Republican state legislator who proposed a bill to require the reimplantation of an ectopic embryo into the uterus, instead of "killing the baby", as he put it. One of the major physicians in the state had to patiently explain to him and his fellow dipshit gyneticians (politicians who think they know more than doctors about women's bodies) over and over that "reimplantation" simply just wasn't possible.

[Maraya1969]

85. What a fucking idiot! With my ectopic they couldn't even find the embryo! It was so weird

I remember my mother telling she didn't think I was pregnant. If there is another reason for pregnancy hormones I'm ready to hear it. (They said it may have gone back into the ovary which is, truthfully hard to believe but I am certainly not going to say I am not pregnant just because they can't find the embryo when I have all the other symptoms

[Ohio Joe]

2. Repugs don't care

In fact, they want things like this to happen.

[Johnny2X2X]

5. 100%

If she dies, they will say it's god's will and that she just needed to pray harder.

People don't seem to get it yet, even here on DU, the most extreme policies on women's health care you are seeing in places like Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carlina are 100% what Trump will bring nationwide. They don't care if women die from pregnancy. They don't care if children are raped and forced to give birth. They want the death penalty for anyone who gets an abortion, that's what the Alabam ruling is all about, declaring embryos as full human beings is an effort to make abortion punishable the same way as murder of children is.

[Rebl2]

27. Even if it

happens to republican women.

[Grokenstein]

67. Aside from the obvious exceptions

As usual, high-ranking Republickscum figures and their families will still have the sort of access they will deny everyone else.

[Rebl2]

77. Well of course

Their everyday supporters won’t have that same access though.

[Texin]

78. Ah, c'mon. It's not gonna happen to republican women.

[Lovie777]

3. That is painful and pure torture and if anyone survives...........................

she may become sterile. The GQP are truly evil motherf***keres.

[Wicked Blue]

4. They love to make women and girls suffer nt

[SergeStorms]

12. 'The Handmaid's Tale'....

writ large, in Texas. It's a real-life Gilead, where the state wants to own and control womens' fertility, and women in general. 😡

Congratulations, ladies! You're now the state of Texas' property! Doesn't it give you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside?

[AZ8theist]

76. Not long to this:

[SergeStorms]

90. They'll invade Brazil....

to "appropriate" Christ the Redeemer for the reflecting pool.
I don't know about you, but it sure gives me the warm fuzzies just thinking about it.

[Ray Bruns]

6. They need to sue the hospital and doctor for malpractice.

[Freddie]

52. No they need to sue the state!

Doctors were trying to protect themselves from disastrous consequences if some jury decided the patients life was not in “enough” danger.

[multigraincracker]

7. I'd like to see a study on the %

of prayers answered on the operating table compared to those answered laying in bed bed at home.

[Probatim]

11. I've asked my in-laws about who has the best batting average at their prayer circles.

I need to make sure I'm buttering up the right people should I run into them.

They don't think that I'm funny.

[dalton99a]

8. Republicans like to kill Americans.

[niyad]

42. Especially women.

[limbicnuminousity]

9. It's like they watched the scene in Alien

where the infant alien bursts out of the guy's chest and said "that's how it's supposed to happen! The creator got it wrong! We can fix that."

Loreena Bobbit should run for TX Surgeon General.

[Ferrets are Cool]

10. Brought to you by the party of I DON'T CARE.

[dlk]

13. It's abundantly clear: Republicans delight in abusing women

The more painful, the better. They are as sick and twisted as it gets.

[brakester]

53. Repukians'/talibangelists' entire....

...philosophy is based on punishment.

It's an ugly way to live.

I'm in my senior years and have had a life full of enriching experiences, love, joy, good friends, a fantastic life partner, satisfying jobs, etc.

The last time America felt like this was in the repressive 1950s. I don't want my life book-ended by religious fanatics.

[dlk]

56. The Christian Taliban

Fifteen years ago, a friend coined this term. She also said Republicans wanted to keep women pregnant, poor and grateful. Her words were more prescient than I could have ever imagined.

[niyad]

86. I have been saying for nearly thirty years that it is the religious nut jobs

Last edited Sat Feb 24, 2024, 01:16 AM - Edit history (1)

in THIS country that I worry about. And even knowing we were basically one vote away from the Handmaid's Tale, I am still a bit surprised at what has happened.

[Silver Gaia]

92. Same here, niyad.

I grew up with these nutcases in my family as a little kid. I even had to go to church with them sometimes to "appease" my grandparents. Even though I KNEW firsthand the depths of their ugly, distorted beliefs, and I feared them personally, I never dreamed they would amass this much power. I always thought the good people, like me and my parents, would keep them in check. They are about to unleash a full blown Gilead on us if we don't manage to put them under their rocks again. And SOON.

[niyad]

93. EXACTLY!!!

[dlk]

104. I think many of us are stunned about where we are

Republicans have shown they’re not so different from religious zealots and extremists in other parts of the world. They’re in a race backward to the Dark Ages. The problem is they want to drag the rest of us along with them.

[SouthernDem4ever]

14. Sounds like attempted murder by Texas

What a ass-backward state legislature.

[usaf-vet]

15. In a past life. Over a four year period. I could only guess how many times I and others were alerted to get ready for...

.... an emergency surgery for an expected rupturing ectopic pregnancy.

As the scrub tech, those were always emergencies, and more often than not, in the middle of the night.

Some when well if caught early enough. Many did not. And a delayed intervention often times led to sepsis of the abdominal cavity.

Some of the sepsis had spread to other reproductive organs, resulting in additional surgical removal.

More than one woman left that surgical suite with the inability ever to get pregnant again.

The population I was working with was military families, most (80%+) in the childbearing age.

We did the required surgery within hours of the diagnosis.

GO HOME AND WAIT UNfu*king believable, even in the mid 1960s.

[yardwork]

28. I can't believe the doctors thought an ectopic pregnancy "might be viable."

No qualified practitioner could think that. Either they were unqualified or have been told by the hospital not to treat. Most physicians won't stay where they aren't allowed to practice medicine.

[usaf-vet]

46. I SAW NOT ONE IN FOUR YEARS that was a viable pregnancy.

Even if it was caught before a rupture, the biological material that we surgical removed was never going to be a pregnancy.

Even if the Uterus had a side door entrance

[yardwork]

47. Exactly. Ectopic pregnancies are never viable.

[Tree Lady]

16. That's insane!

My daughter years ago almost died of that type of pregnancy and had to have immediate D & C, they didn't call it an abortion, it was a medical procedure which is what it is!! She didn't know she was pregnant she just got super sick, high fever and pain, and was taken to emergency room.

[NotHardly]

17. The New Death Panels

... have arrived in unexpected ways, via Republican judges and legislators pretending to be knowledgeable physicians.

[brakester]

55. Project 2025, Heritage Foundation's plan ...

for America:

"there is a detailed scheme to replace perhaps up to 50,000 civil servants with political cronies, and bring the justice department under political control."

Just imagine if the government is filled with inexperienced, incompetent, uneducated but LOYAL right wing fanatics?

Legislators making decisions better left to skilled medical practitioners is a cruel nightmare and only a preview of what's to come.

Read about Project 2025 and always VOTE BLUE!

[calimary]

99. The REAL Death Panels.

I’ve never seen our country this fucked-up.

[bucolic_frolic]

18. First consideration of a business

What sort of potential liability is there with this customer. State of Texas has chosen to answer that question for cases like this, so they refuse to treat.

[Happy Hoosier]

19. Sue the fuck out of them.

If basic human deceny doesn'tget through to them, hit them in the wallet. HARD.

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

75. That's all they care about

Emphasize to the jury that the doctors were forbidden to perform lifesaving surgery on someone but broke their hypocratic oath and should be delicensed for choosing to do harm. Also emphasize that the day is coming when testicular cancer will not be treated because of the living sperm in the testes.

Make the judgement eye opening, like Trumps.

[StarryNite]

20. They believe women are expendable and

according to Tubberville children are commodities.

[barbtries]

21. this must be actionable.

Please, someone get her a lawyer. malpractice against the doctors and the hospital. she should have a case that could go to the supreme court and turn this travesty all the way around. I'm not a lawyer, but this is so clearly egregious, she must have a path to recourse. The next woman they do this to may die.

I am happy that she was able to get help without dying. I once worked with a man whose wife was left in a vegetable state due to an ectopic pregnancy. This was in the 70's. My ex DIL needed emergency surgery for the same thing. By then it was the 2000s and I remember the hospital offering her literature about how to deal with the loss of a child. I don't think they knew she was pregnant and at that point we were all just happy that SHE was alive. That pregnancy was never going to be a child. Ectopic pregnancies are a glitch of nature; calling them children is fucking SICK.

what women haters have done through the years

[moonshinegnomie]

22. sue the fucking hospital and the doctors

My wife had 2 ectopics,one ruptured and i still remember driving her to the hospital at 75-100 mph

sue the doctors and the hospital into oblivion. i think 10M is a good number to start with. also strip the doctor of his license

[jaxexpat]

23. Let's get our priorities straight. What's important here, anyway?

These narrow-minded "pro-life" busy bodies need to get their noses out of our health care system. Government and the USSC should not kowtow to such narrow interests. Micromanaging, second-guessing and demoralizing your physician is the duty of the health care industry.

[niyad]

24. Ectopic pregnancies are not viable.

[Irish_Dem]

35. So they lied to get the dying woman out of the hospital.

To get rid of their legal liability.

[niyad]

36. Yes.

[Irish_Dem]

40. Lovely country we live in.

[niyad]

44. Amazing, is it not? back to the Dark Ages.

[Irish_Dem]

59. It is like we have been thrown into a time machine.

A time machine going backwards.

[mercuryblues]

63. worse

Even back then doctors were allowed to treat medical emergencies like this. Without the threat of going to jail or getting fired.

Until the 1880's ectopic pregnancies were always fatal. In 1884, Dr Tait discovered that by removing the fallopian tube, women survived. As medical knowledge increased, so did the treatment.

Well, until these draconian laws became the norm. If caught early enough they could be treated with medicine, not surgery. Here's the rub. The medicine would stop the egg from growing, saving the tube. AKA abortion.

For the men reading this and don't really know what an ectopic pregnancy is


You know those balloons that clowns blow up and make dogs out of?

Stuff one of those with a deflated football. Start pumping air into the football and watch it explode.

[Irish_Dem]

64. So we are going back to before 1880.

Ectopic pregnancies always fatal.

Our pets get better care.

[Hekate]

25. It's not viable, it never was, and never will be. But just wait, and the woman will be non-viable too.

From the SCOTUS on down, the RW has blood on its hands.

[question everything]

26. Twenty Century Underground Railroad- transferring women out of state

by out of state people so that they cannot be persecuted by Paxton

[Hekate]

74. The trouble with a life threatening emergency is there's no time at all. Other than that, yes...

…women can be helped with transportation, money, and above all secrecy.

[no_hypocrisy]

29. I don't understand why a TX GYN wouldn't

try to send her out of state for emergency treatment. Unless it was cost prohibitive.

[Irish_Dem]

37. It's against Texas law to help a woman get an abortion.

The doctors don't want to go to prison.

[whopis01]

49. It is cost prohibitive to help in Texas

Texas SB-8 allows any private citizen to sue anyone "aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion".

The suing party does not have to have any relationship to the person getting the abortion or the person that "aids or abets". The suing party can be awarded $10,000 plus attorney fees and court costs from the party being sued.

You don't even have to wait for the person to help. You can sue someone if they "intend to engage" in aiding or abetting an abortion.

Section 171.208
https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/billtext/pdf/SB00008F.pdf

[brakester]

57. With ectopic pregnancies,

time is of the essence!
An egg lodged in the tiny fallopian tubes increases in size every minute. By the time you know something is wrong, the clock is ticking on the woman's life.

[diane in sf]

69. Not enough time with a rupturing ectopic pregnancy bleeding out.

[kimbutgar]

30. Women in Texas need to rise up and vote,out all repukes in Texas because something like this

Could happen to the, a family member or a good friend. Repukes don’t care about women they just want to control them!

[lapfog_1]

31. ectopic pregnancy

is nearly 100 percent fatal to the fetus and the mother if left untreated.

My former girlfriend worked as a PA in a clinic in Phoenix... and she was so happy the day she came home and told me that she diagnosed a young woman that came to the clinic because "something didn't feel right". After my gf diagnosed her, she was sent to the ER and had the abortion done that day. My gf was walking on air for the next day about saving a life.

These people are monsters... absolute monsters. I hate them with the heat of a 1000 suns.

[FarPoint]

32. The American Medical Association must come out of their box....

This is a medical/ surgical life threatening situation.....Doctors are not rallying around patients needs to comply with, " Do No Harm".

[FarPoint]

33. The American Medical Association must come out of their box....

This is a medical/ surgical life threatening situation.....Doctors are not rallying around patients needs to comply with, " Do No Harm".

[Irish_Dem]

39. Doctors also have to follow state laws.

They can go to prison for violating them.

When the laws and ethics collide, yes the docs need to start protesting or leave the state.

[FarPoint]

45. I understand their need to comply with the law...

Doctors also need to advocate for their practice and patients....Protest, go to State House....etc....activism is in great need.

[Irish_Dem]

60. Yes professional ethical guidelines tell us to obey the laws of the state.

And the rules of your hospital and clinic.

However if the laws and the rules are unethical, such a putting patients in harm's way,
then we MUST file a protest and object.

If that fails then we are to leave the hospital, clinic or state and seek other employment.

[mercuryblues]

61. An ectopic pregnancy

is when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus.
They are never, ever a viable pregnancy.

As the egg grows it will burst the Fallopian tubes, where most ectopic pregnancies occur. Although rare, they can also occur in the cervix. ovary and abdomen.

If left untreated it will kill the woman, at worst. At best she will need to have her reproductive organs removed. Either way she will never have a child in the future, it she has one.

Declining to treat her, will most likely result in death.

This is why it is not about the "babies" If it were a woman would get the healthcare she needs.

[Irish_Dem]

62. The doctor is forced to follow the law, or let a patient die.

I know what choice I would make.
But I cannot speak for others.

[Irish_Dem]

34. This is the world the GOP wants. Torturing, killing, terrorizing women.

Modern day version of the Salem Witch Trials.

[solara]

38. Guess a 'hale & hearty' Thank you is due to

dictator wannabe, donald the detestable. After all didn't the loathsome ex-president claim absolute responsibility for the fiasco that has become the vestige of 'Roe V. Wade'?

May 2023 - "Im the one who got rid of Roe V. Wade" -trump -

[Hekate]

70. Please always give Mitch McConnell a prominent mention, as more than anyone else this Court is his creation

[tavernier]

41. There was a man in line in front of her

Waiting for a penis extension surgery.

[Sky Jewels]

48. Oh dear. I hope this Vagina-American's silly little complaint didn't delay his very important surgery!

[Hekate]

43. It was never viable. But wait a few days, and the woman won't be viable either...

From the SCOTUS on down, the RW has blood on its hands.

[Vinca]

50. That's batshit crazy - an ectopic pregnancy can never be viable. If the doctors actually

acted in this way their medical licenses should be pulled.

[sakabatou]

51. We knew something like this would happen

[Hekate]

71. Yes we did, and said it loudly & often

[DBoon]

54. "Republican governor diagnosed with cardiac arrest. TX hospital told him to go home and wait"

FTFY

[Hekate]

72. If only

[3catwoman3]

58. "...saying there was some chance the pregnancy was still viable."

Where the hell did these ignorant docs go to med school?

As niyad stated just above, ectopic pregnancies ARE.NOT.VIABLE.
Period. End of story. That's it.

[Hekate]

73. Ted Haggard & Jimmy Swaggart Bible College, where they pray the gay away

[slightlv]

79. I learned this fact way back in my 5th grade

health class! Where in the hell did these docs go to school? In Texas? Someone at least give them a copy of "Our Bodies, Ourselves."

[wendyb-NC]

65. That is terrifying, that poor woman

The Dr's at the 1st hospital are guilty of malpractice. Glad the 2nd hospital doctors took the appropriate actions and terminated that pregnancy.

[FeelingBlue]

66. Those women who can...

Should leave that foul state.

[Liberty Belle]

68. She should sue those quack docs for malpractice and file complaints with the state medical board to revoke licenses.

Ectopic pregnancies are NEVER viable. A friend passed out from one and barely made it to the hospital in time to save her life.

There is no baby to save, as there is no room for it to develop after the egg implants in the Fallopian tube.

[bdamomma]

80. Sickening

absolutely sickening, this is all war on women. Period. Their attitude let the mother die????? These are very evil people.

We will not go back.

[struggle4progress]

81. Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital: "Don't ask for our help until you're actually dying"

[Martin68]

83. Sick fucks.

[bottomofthehill]

84. These fucking people are sick.

I almost lost my wife to an ectopic, she was bleeding internally and we had no clue. I came home from work and she was gray and lethargic. I drove her to the ER and her blood pressure was in the low 90’s over low 60’s. Total stroke risk, need a lot of blood after the surgery. It scared the hell out of me and I am a crisis manager. Seeing my wife like that was a lot. Sending this person home from the hospital is criminal

[AverageOldGuy]

87. Ectopic pregnancy

Also known as a "tubal pregnancy". Google it.

I'm an EMT with a volunteer rescue squad in a rural VA county. Ten or so years ago we were dispatched around 1:00 AM for 39-yr-old female, severe abdominal pain, spotting.

When two of us -- driver and I -- rolled up in the front yard we could hear her sobbing and screaming. She was on the living room floor, wearing a T-shirt and a sanitary napkin, alternately screaming and sobbing; trash can next to her contained two bloody napkins. We had read about this but frankly both of us were frightened. Husband was a basket case.

She was around three months pregnant -- her first -- her OB-GYN had told her about things that could go wrong with a pregnancy at her age.

I called ER, doc told me to give her 2 mg of morphine, keep her as comfortable as possible, bring the bloody pads with us (he needed to be able to estimate her total blood loss), and run emergency. The ER called a helicopter because our rural general hospital had no OB service; helicopter was there when we arrived, loaded her on the bird, flew her to medical center in Richmond.

We checked on her a few days later, she was back home, an emotional wreck, never got pregnant again. I see her from time to time. She always stops to talk, smiles a lot, but she always talks about that night.

If you've never experienced this, you don't want to go through it, you don't want to see it, you don't want to read or hear about it. I was so troubled I did not answer another rescue call for two months.

Now, women will go through this time and again.

The anti-abortion crowd are evil, evil, evil. Every goddam one of the bastards.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

95. the GOP is withdrawing modern medicine from women

[Blue Owl]

88. What fresh hell the GOP has unleashed upon its own citizens

[stage left]

89. There's a mama who looks like she's ready to eat some Rethuglicans

Raw. Without any sauce. That would be me if it was my daughter.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

94. she is ANGRY

[stage left]

105. I don't blame her

I'd be beside myself if it was my daughter.

[Iggo]

91. They think they're the good guys.

[Trueblue1968]

96. SHE. SHOULD. SUE !!!!!!

[róisín_dubh]

97. Insanity!

I vividly remember my teacher discussing this in high school health class. He taught us the grave dangers of ectopic pregnancies using his own wife as an example. She had gotten up in the middle of the night (to pee I guess) and he woke up some time later realising she wasn’t in bed. He found her collapse on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. She was rushed to the hospital where doctors were able to save her and her reproductive organs, fortunately.
I’ll never forget that story, it’s been 30 years since I sat in that classroom.
These people are vile monsters.

[DFW]

98. Pro-Death Republicans

Death sentences handed down by Republicans for the crime of being born with two X chromasomes.

Perversity taken to a high art.

[GiqueCee]

100. And Texas retains...

... it title as Anus of the Universe!

The good people of Texas had better cowboy up and get rid of the Terrible Triumvirate. Abbott, Patrick, and Paxton are textbook psychopaths and should be dealt with accordingly. They, and their sympathetic minions, ought to fill quite a few buses. Drop 'em off in Tierra del Fuego.

[elias7]

101. As an ED physician, I would be sued if i missed an ectopic

There has to be some medical legal accountability here, the science is clear.

[Bristlecone]

102. When do witch trials make their way to the Texas Legislature and Abbot's desk for signature?

Fuck Texas.

[Turbineguy]

103. Sex in red states.

Where men are men and the sheep are scared.