A spokeswoman with the Missouri Department of Health says her agency is investigating if a hospital violated federal law by denying a woman access to an emergency abortion.
Lisa Cox, the spokeswoman for Missouri's Health and Senior Services, said in a statement, according to ABC and AP, the agency established an investigation into southern Missouri's Freeman Health System's treatment of Mylissa Farmer.
Farmer, who is from Joplin, told The Associated Press that she went to the hospital's local emergency room after her water broke. She said tests revealed she lost all amniotic fluid due to a pregnancy complication and doctors told her her fetus would not survive.
As indicated by medical records, doctors told her, "awaiting a medical emergency may put her at further risk for maternal mortality," as well as the possible removal of her uterus.
But because her fetus still had a heartbeat at that particular moment and doctors did not consider her condition a life-threatening medical emergency, they could not terminate the pregnancy in Missouri, and she would have to get an abortion in Illinois.
Records indicate doctors told Farmer the law supersedes their medical judgment and "contrary to the most appropriate management based (on) my medical opinion, due to the legal language of MO law, we are unable to offer induction of labor at this time."
"They were telling me to basically get out of the state to get the care that I needed," the 41-year-old, who is considered a geriatric pregnancy, told the AP.
Reportedly, Missouri's abortion ban covers exceptions for medical emergencies. Still, doctors and hospitals are unsure exactly how that is defined.
The hospital spokeswoman Liz Syer later said it is their practice not to comment on patient care.
Following the Supreme Court's decision to strike down in July, Roe v. Wade, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra wrote in an email to healthcare providers the federal EMTALA statute "protects your clinical judgment and the action that you take to provide stabilizing medical treatment to your pregnant patients, regardless of the restrictions in the state where you practice."
Becerra added a hospital violating any of EMTALA's provisions "may be subject to termination of its Medicare provider agreement and/or the imposition of civil monetary penalties. Civil monetary penalties may also be imposed against individual physicians for EMTALA violations. Additionally, physicians may also be subject to exclusion from the Medicare and State health care programs."
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.