Josseli Barnica grieved the news as she lay in a Houston hospital bed on Sept. 3, 2021: The sibling she’d dreamt of giving her daughter would not survive this pregnancy.

The fetus was on the verge of coming out, its head pressed against her dilated cervix; she was 17 weeks pregnant and a miscarriage was “in progress,” doctors noted in hospital records. At that point, they should have offered to speed up the delivery or empty her uterus to stave off a deadly infection, more than a dozen medical experts told ProPublica.

But when Barnica’s husband rushed to her side from his job on a construction site, she relayed what she said the medical team had told her: “They had to wait until there was no heartbeat,” he told ProPublica in Spanish. “It would be a crime to give her an abortion.”

For 40 hours, the anguished 28-year-old mother prayed for doctors to help her get home to her daughter; all the while, her uterus remained exposed to bacteria.

Three days after she delivered, Barnica died of an infection.

  • davidagain@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Vote Kamala Harris and your sisters, wives and daughters might stop dying for lack of health care when pregnant. Allow Trump to regain power and it will get much, much worse for the women you care about.

    • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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      5 hours ago

      What is the course of action that you expect Kamala to take that would prevent this situation in Texas? And if you have one, why hasn’t Biden done it already?

      • Yeller_king@reddthat.com
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        4 hours ago

        Win the WH, win both houses of Congress, blow up the filibuster and enact national protections for abortion.

        Will it work? Probably not. It definitely won’t happen if Trump wins, though.

        Plus if Trump wins, Alito and Thomas retire and get replaced by 25 year old fascists and things get even worse for decades.

        I dunno if you were being sincere or intentionally obtuse, but it’s kind of straightforward that we have to win.

        • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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          3 hours ago

          That shit hasn’t happened in less contentious times, I literally cannot imagine it happening now.

          • Yeller_king@reddthat.com
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            3 hours ago

            Ok probably not sincere.

            The contentiousness is what put killing the filibuster on the table. In less contentious times, we didn’t need to destroy basic political norms just to save people’s lives.

            It takes basically no effort to vote. Things are clearly better with Harris winning than Trump.

      • Chapelgentry@lemmynsfw.com
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        4 hours ago

        Who controls the House? That’s a better barometer of change but having a supportive president is paramount. Either have control of the house and overwhelming control of the Senate, or enough control of both that a friendly President signs the bill into law.

        Why hasn’t Biden done it already? Mike Johnson.