In the last three years, we have heard about the devastating results of abortion bans across the country. These bans became especially strict after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. In 2021, a 28-year-old woman in Texas died because of the state’s unclear abortion ban.
The Texas woman would have likely survived if she had better care, experts say. Her story highlights just how dangerous and damaging these abortion bans are, especially to women who need them to save their lives.
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There was no saving her pregnancy.
ProPublica released a detailed report on the death of Texas woman Josseli Barnica. On September 3, 2021, Barnica lay in a hospital bed in Houston with the understanding that her pregnancy wasn’t viable. She was 17 weeks along and her cervix was dilated when she got to the hospital.
In her medical records, which were reviewed by the news outlet, her miscarriage was “in progress.” Typically, if she was already having a miscarriage, doctors should have offered to speed up the labor or empty her uterus. But this was Texas, so they couldn’t do what is typical.
Texas abortion bans were already in effect.
When Barnica’s husband arrived at the hospital, she repeated to him what she was told by her medical team. “They had to wait until there was no heartbeat,” her husband told ProPublica. “It would be a crime to give her an abortion.”
One day before the woman had arrived at the hospital while having a miscarriage, Texas’ six-week abortion ban took effect, the news outlet reported. Under this ban, doctors couldn’t intervene unless there was a “medical emergency,” but the law never specified what constitutes an emergency.
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The unclear rules likely cost Barnica her life.
In a hospital report, doctors called Barnica’s miscarriage “inevitable.” Despite knowing this, likely for fear of legal action, the doctors did nothing. For 40 hours, the woman lay in her hospital bed with a dilated cervix and an open uterus — creating a breeding ground for infection.
The obstetrician on duty, Dr. Shirley Lima, noted in the mother’s medical chart that she was providing the woman with pain medication and “emotional support” – even though they knew that the longer she wasn’t treated, the more dire conditions would turn.
Barnica's death was devastating.
Once doctors could no longer detect a fetal heartbeat, they were able to give Barnica medication to help speed up her labor, according to ProPublica. Eight hours after she delivered her nonviable fetus, the woman was discharged from the hospital. When she got home, she noticed bleeding, and when she called the hospital, she was told it was normal.
Two days later, the bleeding got worse, and her family implored her to go back to the hospital. Her husband left her there so he could go home to their 1-year-old daughter. Unfortunately, Josseli Barnica never left the hospital. She died as a result of sepsis involving “products of conception.”
“I fully expected her to come home,” her husband told ProPublica.
In the end, Barnica's death was preventable.
ProPublica reached out to the doctors who treated Barnica, but they declined to comment. HCA Healthcare, the hospital where she was taken, told the news outlet “our responsibility is to be in compliance with applicable state and federal laws and regulations” and that the doctors used their independent judgment.
However, the news outlet had multiple physicians review the woman’s medical records and they all came to the same conclusion: Barnica’s death was preventable.
“These experts said that there was a good chance she might have survived if she’d been treated earlier,” ProPublica reporter Kavitha Surana told ABC News Live. “No one can say for sure where the sepsis developed. But 40 hours with your cervix wide open in a hospital, that is not the standard of care to require someone to take that risk.”
