Jaime Monzon
Women march through downtown San Antonio during a 2022 protest against Texas' abortion ban.
The Center for Reproductive Rights represented the women in separate filings made Monday with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The patients, Kyleigh Thurman and Kelsie Norris-De La Cruz, maintain that they nearly died after being repeatedly turned away by two separate hospitals. Both women had ectopic pregnancies — a dangerous condition where a fetus grows outside the uterus.
The filings argue that by refusing to conduct the abortions, the hospitals violated the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires healthcare facilities — even in Texas and other states with abortion bans — to provide stabilizing care, including abortions, to those facing medical emergencies.
Both Thurman and Norris-De La Cruz lost a fallopian tube due to their problem pregnancies, according to their federal complaints. As a result, both now face difficulties carrying future pregnancies.
“These women are proof that exceptions do not make abortion bans less dangerous, even when they are exceedingly clear," Beth Brinkmann, senior director of U.S. litigation at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in an emailed statement. "Texas law clearly allows for abortions to treat ectopic pregnancies, and federal law requires it. Yet, Kelsie and Kyleigh were denied absolutely urgent care. As long as these bans are in place, doctors will be terrified to provide abortions of any kind."
Texas law permit abortions to save a patient’s life, but doctors have repeatedly warned that it's a difficult call to make, especially since they face state penalties that can include up to life in prison, fines and the loss of their medical license.
“It’s impossible to have the best interest of your patient in mind when you’re staring down a life sentence," Brinkmann said. "Texas officials have put doctors in an impossible situation. It is clear that these exceptions are a farce, and that these laws are putting countless lives in jeopardy.”
Ectopic pregnancy is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the first trimester, accounting for up to 10% of all pregnancy-related deaths nationwide, according to the journal Women's Health. In 2022, the majority of Texas' pregnancy-related deaths were due to hemorrhage, and the most common cause of hemorrhage was ruptured ectopic pregnancy, the state's own research shows.
“I never imagined I would find myself in the crosshairs of my home state’s extreme abortion bans," Thurman said in a statement supplied by the Center for Reproductive Rights. "For weeks, I was in and out of emergency rooms trying to get the abortion that I needed to save my future fertility and life. This should have been an open-and-shut case. Yet, I was left completely in the dark without any information or options for the care I deserved."
“Despite the fact that my life was clearly in danger, the hospital told me that they could not help me. I ended up losing half of my fertility and if I was made to wait any longer, it’s very likely I would have died,” Norris-De La Cruz added in her statement.
Despite purported state and federal protections, more than 100 pregnant women facing major health risks who sought help from emergency rooms were turned away or negligently treated since 2022, an Associated Press analysis of federal hospital investigations found.
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