2 hospitals violate federal law by refusing to provide emergency abortion to woman, federal agency says
Fox News
A woman who was experiencing premature labor that was putting her life in jeopardy wasn't helped at two hospitals. The hospitals violated federal law by not performing an abortion.
But federal law, which requires doctors to treat patients in emergency situations, trumps those state laws, the nation's top health official said in a statement.
"Fortunately, this patient survived. But she never should have gone through the terrifying ordeal she experienced in the first place," Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said. "We want her, and every patient out there like her, to know that we will do everything we can to protect their lives and health, and to investigate and enforce the law to the fullest extent of our legal authority, in accordance with orders from the courts."
The federal agency's investigation centers on two hospitals — Freeman Health System in Joplin, Missouri, and University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, Kansas — that in August refused to provide an abortion to a Missouri woman whose water broke early at 17 weeks of pregnancy. Doctors at both hospitals told Mylissa Farmer that her fetus would not survive, that her amniotic fluid had emptied and that she was at risk for serious infection or losing her uterus, but they would not terminate the pregnancy because a fetal heartbeat was still detectable.