Candace Fails screamed for someone in the Texas hospital to help her pregnant daughter. “Do something,” she pleaded, on the morning of Oct. 29, 2023.
Nevaeh Crain was crying in pain, too weak to walk, blood staining her thighs. Feverish and vomiting the day of her baby shower, the 18-year-old had gone to two different emergency rooms within 12 hours, returning home each time worse than before.
The first hospital diagnosed her with strep throat without investigating her sharp abdominal cramps. At the second, she screened positive for sepsis, a life-threatening and fast-moving reaction to an infection, medical records show. But doctors said her six-month fetus had a heartbeat and that Crain was fine to leave.
Now on Crain’s third hospital visit, an obstetrician insisted on two ultrasounds to “confirm fetal demise,” a nurse wrote, before moving her to intensive care.
By then, more than two hours after her arrival, Crain’s blood pressure had plummeted and a nurse had noted that her lips were “blue and dusky.” Her organs began failing.
Hours later, she was dead.
Fails, who would have seen her daughter turn 20 this Friday, still cannot understand why Crain’s emergency was not treated like an emergency.
But that is what many pregnant women are now facing in states with strict abortion bans, doctors and lawyers have told ProPublica.
She did her part keeping the hospital beds available for more profitable patients. It’s the American way. As long as our hospitals (and government) prioritize profits over health, there will be no end to these stories.
Where were all the pro-lifers? Oh, that’s right, they only care about you before birth. My mistake.
That’ll teach those sinful women for daring to have sex without their owners’ permission. Even stuff like this won’t sway the committed republicunts since they can fall back on some bullshit about “god’s plan” or find ways to turn it back on the victims of their politics.
Is there a database that collects these cases? I’m not from the US, but I think it would make a lot of sense to have a website that documents all those cases, so one could point people to it if necessary.
I imagine it would be a HIPAA violation for hospitals to release these details; you only hear about the ones that the individual families decide to make public by speaking to journalists…
…so it’s even worse/more common than you think.
Stop saying “died” - Another woman was MURDERED by ignorant texas bigots in their government and spiteful, irresponsible, freedom-hating voter base.
cruz, abbott, patrick, gohmert, cornyn and cock-eyed Ken the AG, along with trump, corrupt SCOTUS majority and the whole gop giving them cover, are soaked in this woman’s blood.
She was a white woman, literally named heaven HEAVEN backwards, and she’s still dead, you absolute cowards that voted to enable this. Y When will you realize that you’re not safe from this, you’re not different, you’re not “one of the good ones” that will see some protections others won’t. Go have someone read a short poem to you, commonly referred to as, “first they came for”. There will be plenty of words in there you don’t understand, but the gist is, YOU OR YOUR DAUGHTER ARE FUCKING NEXT UP - this dead teenager, who never saw her 20th birthday, is the latest Handmaid they throw on the wall as an example to others of what’s coming.
There won’t be an official announcement when christian fascism takes over your area or else there would have been one a while ago.
Around 1 in 5 pregnancies, that’s 20%, end in miscarriage. There’s a bit of a genetic lottery that is random within this crazy sensitive process of creating a baby. You can be doing everything right, but it doesn’t matter. You can lose the pregnancy and many do. And then, statistically, their next pregnancy is healthy and without complication.
There’s no fault to a person in this progress, just like there’s no fault to how a flower grows - some have more pedals, some have crooked stems, some never grow and stay seeds in the ground. Texas killing this child for losing a pregnancy is akin to them having you roll a 5 sided dice and shooting anyone who lands on a “4” between the eyes.
Ignorance and fear rule the red areas on the US map. Of course those red areas are populated predominately by trees, lakes and mountains, all of which are likely more intelligent and empathetic than the few frightened human voters spattered throughout that share that very rural landscape.
Texas killing this child for losing a pregnancy
Texas didn’t kill her for loosing a pregnancy - Texas killed her by making her losing the pregnancy take too long by terrifying doctors out of speeding the process along, causing her to be in and out of hospital ERs repeatedly while doctors essentially played “hot potato” with her despite all of them knowing what needed done out of fear of being thrown in prison for a century if they did it, causing her to eventually develop sepsis and die.
It’s much, much worse than “killing her for losing a pregnancy”, and exactly how awful it is and how it got to that point needs to be spelled out in detail. Otherwise you’ll have people pointing out that the Texas law has an exception for medical emergencies, and it needs pointed out and doubled down on that by the time the doctors were reasonably certain that a conservative Texas court would agree with them it was a medical emergency (aka she’d already developed a systemic infection), she was already doomed.
The people that voted for this shit have the biggest blinders on right now. I’m sure they’re trying to ignore that anything has gone wrong.
I hope someone with enough money to make this a problem for the policy makers gets after this in court soon. The USA needs to either pass a federal law stating that abortion is legal, or they need a new roe v. Wade judgement on the books. Until one of those things happens, this continual and unnecessary loss of life will continue; it is inevitable.
For people who call themselves “pro-life” they sure don’t give any shits about people continuing to live.
Anyone who is anti abortion, this is for you: 🖕
Sincerely,
- your horrified neighbor to the north.
Hey, remember that former Trump aide and professional jackass, John McEntee, who said he didn’t see any evidence of women being injured as a result of anti-abortion laws? Funnily enough, he has been conspicuously silent on the subject since. Instead, he’s now making “jokes” about repealing the 19th amendment. A real piece of work.
CW: SA
Remember Todd Akin’s comment on sexual assault?
"It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Mr. Akin said of pregnancies from rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”
Not that it matters if an abortion is requested due to rape or any other reason, but this quote really drives home that it isn’t really about protecting children despite that last line: they think all women who get abortions should be punished for being murderous sluts despite all evidence to the contrary.
This is exactly the goal of force birth policies.
Women who don’t survive are considered weak and must be cleansed for Republicans’ perfect society. It’s eugenics. Killing women is the point, in the minds of Republicans every woman who dies deserves it.
Absolutely horrifying.
The second ER diagnosed her with sepsis and then sent her home because her fetus had a heartbeat.
I’m disgusted. If you are a woman, you need to get the fuck out of these death trap states. It is not safe for you there.
The second ER diagnosed her with sepsis and then sent her home
That right there should be criminal charges. Pregnancy staus is irrelevant at that point. Sepsis will kill you if untreated.
It was the politicians in Texas that harmed this woman. Not the hospital. The Texas AG sent letters to every hospital in Texas saying he would press criminal charges to anyone granting an emergency abortion. As hard as it is for poor and middle class workers, there’s no way any nurse doctor or hospital is going to put themselves in front of the Texas government. If they could they would have left the state already. (many have.) Small towns in forced birth States literally have no pregnancy care facilities because the staff has all left.
Just following orders.
But they saved the “baby” right?
Imo it’s premeditated murder.
It’s one of the main reasons I got a vasectomy
Maybe don’t let your conservative colleagues know that. They tend to think less of men who get vasectomies for some reason. That could negatively affect how you are perceived at work. Just FYI, from a guy who spent a lifetime working with these cunts.
I’ve known (or dated) a few conservative men who refused to get vasectomies because they “lower testosterone”. And, of course that means they’re less of a man (to themselves and others who think that way).
Is that even true?? You still have your balls, the sperm just doesn’t have an exit route anymore. Like, biology is weird as shit, I could see that somehow causing testosterone to drop slightly for some weird ass reason, but I’ve never heard of it.
I should have put that in quotes to avoid confusion. I’ll edit :)
It is absolutely not true. A vasectomy cannot lower testosterone.
Unfortunately, conservatives are opposed to science, so the research on this topic will be ignored by them.
I figured, but man, they’re always learning weird new shit about the body, lol.
The funny thing is the dudes worried about low T don’t know T that is too high (according to your body, not according to what you want) just converts to estrogen… which you would think they would be a lot more concerned about, given their anxieties about being too feminine!
Lol, I did not know that! That’s good to know!
Luckily everyone I work with are liberals. Remote jobs are pretty nice.
the second ER did not diagnose her with sepsis, they diagnosed her with strep throat and a UTI. some portion of responsibility IMO lies with that OB-GYN for screwing up that diagnosis, although i understand the larger point of the article seems to be that doctors are reluctant to diagnose or treat really any condition in pregnant women for fear of getting legally crushed by the state
The first hospital diagnosed her with strep throat without investigating her sharp abdominal cramps. At the second, she screened positive for sepsis, a life-threatening and fast-moving reaction to an infection, medical records show. But doctors said her six-month fetus had a heartbeat and that Crain was fine to leave.
At the second, she screened positive for sepsis
From the article.
The first one said strep. The second one said sepsis.
it’s possible that I’m misunderstanding here but I think the sepsis diagnosis is from a retrospective review of her file. at the time there was no sepsis diagnosis. they even specifically call out that doctor for having been under review for missing diagnoses in the past
After two hours of IV fluids, one dose of antibiotics, and some Tylenol, Crain’s fever didn’t go down, her pulse remained high, and the fetal heart rate was abnormally fast, medical records show. Hawkins noted that Crain had strep and a urinary tract infection, wrote up a prescription and discharged her.
Hawkins had missed infections before. Eight years earlier, the Texas Medical Board found that he had failed to diagnose appendicitis in one patient and syphilis in another. In the latter case, the board noted that his error “may have contributed to the fetal demise of one of her twins.” The board issued an order to have Hawkins’ medical practice monitored; the order was lifted two years later. (Hawkins did not respond to several attempts to reach him.)
Could be. I read the strep and UTI as having been written down either from the previous hospital or by the patient and her mother based on the previous hospital visit.
And while it sounds like Hawkins is not someone you’d want to be in charge of your care, it seems like there were a lot more failures here than just one bad doctor.
We all predicted this would happen because we have a basic understanding of the world and a smidge of empathy. Unlike Republicans.
Death after death after death. The GOP death cult is doing its job.
I have been saying anti-abortion instead of pro-life. But I feel like there must be another simply-expressed term to reflect their thinking. Something along the lines of anti-women or just anti-choice. I dunno.
there must be another simply-expressed term to reflect their thinking
Monstrous. Sociopathic. Inhumane. Evil. Deranged.
There’s plenty of simply-expressed terms to reflect their thinking.
Forced birth
Yeah but in cases like this, it was forced death.
It’s absolutely anti-choice. The party of small government (except when it comes to controlling people).
government small enough to fit in your pants
Forced-birth and anti-autonomy are other options that may be useful. Sex-punishers is another one.
Honestly, it is all about sex punishment. In the conservative mind, getting pregnant is a consequence of sex - and if you need an abortion, then you shouldn’t have had sex. It’s that simple to them.
They don’t think in terms of medical problems or grey areas. Just: had sex, got pregnant, deal with the consequences.
And by the way, men don’t deserve punishment for sex because it’s their nature and prerogative, but women do.
Anti-women’s-health
Removed by mod
Not dying from a miscarriage at 20 doesn’t mean you have good genes, it means you’re lucky. Teen pregnancies (she had just turned 20) are more likely to have complications because their body isn’t finished developing yet.
The millions of years preceding modern medicine didn’t fix it, so I’m not sure how much time you eugenicists think evolution takes
Jesus Christ dude. Turn off your phone. Walk outside. Get some fresh air
It is absolutely infuriating when you bring up a scenario like this and the “pro-life” say “there’s exceptions when it’s a real emergency.”
Then of course they either victim blame or stay silent when the scenarios we described do happen.
Or they just too Old. They’re older than fuck crones who haven’t been capable of gestation in 20 years, so the threat would never effect them.
We need to seriously consider age caps for voting. You ain’t gonna live to see your hateful vote’s outcome, this country doesn’t need your vote.
Let them see this dead fetus they picked over a healthy girl every other night.
This is the future the Republicans want.
But also the present that Republicans have forced upon us.
It’s the present in multiple states. It’s the future they want for the entire country.
And the present the current government is also fine with.
Hate to be that guy, but it is also the present (hopefully not future) the Democrats have allowed Republicans to build:
Bill Clinton promised to codify Roe v. Wade into law. He didn’t.
Obama promised to codify Roe v. Wade into law. He didn’t despite having a super-majority in his first two years.
Biden promised to codify Roe v. Wade into law and didn’t. The Dobbs decision was taken in June 2022, so before the midterms when Democrats still had a simple majority in the house and a tie + VP in the senate. When there were rumors/leaks a month or so before the decision that the USSC would take that decision soon. Again: Inaction.
Reagan gets the blame for 9/11 by not passing Federal laws that help to keep hijackers off of planes.
Yes, they had many chances and failed. But these new laws are NOT anyone’s fault but republicans.
They didn’t fail. They didn’t even try. Not even with a super-majority.
I am sick of such important issues like health of people, let alone half the population, being used as mere strategic play. So please push them to do the right thing, after they’re elected. They don’t seem to respond without pressure.
I’m sure you’re more politically astute than Obama or Pelosi but even with a supermajority Roe v. Wade wasn’t predicted to be murdered under the administration of a russian plant who spiked FBI investigations into the corrupt justices the republiQan controlled Senate waved through after they lied and claimed they though of Roe as settled law.
Democrats are absolutely to blame for not fighting harder, absolutely, but overturning Roe was not supposed to get any support much less 75% of all republiQan women who have had multiple opportunities to oppose it and do not. If one is to legislate like one should many, many, many things would need to change.
My point being it’s not as simple as you make it. And when people jump to “yeah but Democrats are to blame” I know we’re usually already in Bad Faithville. Both Sides and all that. NO.
And when people jump to “yeah but Democrats are to blame” I know we’re usually already in Bad Faithville. Both Sides and all that.
Just no. This is not about both sides in any shape way or form. This is about agency. Fact is: There were ways to do this and the last three Democratic presidents (including the sitting president) have campaigned and outlined plans to codify it into law and didn’t. Yes it may have taken people by surprise that the country and the world is regressing as early and fast as it is, but that doesn’t take away agency, especially when they didn’t even try to spring to action after mere lip service to garner votes.
The thing is: The conservative, religious right, openly formulated and has been following their plan of judicial activism for decades. The lower courts haven’t become this biased towards Republican policy over night. It was due to bad luck, bad faith acting of McConnel and the other Republican senators and stubberness of some involved people on the other side of the aisle that Trump was able to nominate this many people to the USSC. It would have happened at some point.
