An Eureka woman who was nearly homeless twins last year claimed to have refused life-saving abortion care.
Chiropractologist Anna Nusslock sued Providence St. Joseph Hospital Eureka and its parent company Tuesday, held in Hunbert Superior Court, which she hopes will force the company’s California hospitals to comply with state law.
“The work we are doing will protect people today and that will help people survive,” she said. “I want to keep the entire Providence healthcare system accountable.”
The hospital said it has complied with the law.
“The experience described in this lawsuit is incredible and disturbing,” a spokesperson for Providence South Divient wrote in a statement. “We are fully committed to providing care in accordance with federal and state laws and as a faith-based organization. This includes providing medical interventions that provide emergency life-saving that can lead to indirect fetal death.”
The suit is built on Action September Submitted by California. General Rob Bonta accused the hospital of violating the state’s emergency services laws.
“There are existing injunctions in the Attorney General’s case, but this is only for hospitals, and it’s just a restriction on litigation that is yet to be heard,” said KM Bell, senior litigation attorney for reproductive rights and health. National Women’s Law Center, This brought about lawsuits.
Tuesday’s lawsuit aims to make the injunction permanent and binding on all St. Joseph’s hospitals in California.
“I was very surprised at the way this process is treated,” Nuslowk said. “We need to put pressure on these hospitals.”
Nusslock and her husband have been pregnant for many years when they became pregnant in late 2023. After her water ruptured in late February last year, she rushed to the emergency room that was worried about the worst.
However, although doctors in the emergency room told her that while Nuslowk’s life was still dangerous, her twins could not survive, she told her that she “didn’t have enough death” to receive emergency abortion care.
“I remember saying to someone, ‘But it’s California!’” Nuslowk recalls. “But it’s a technical thing when the only hospital you can have a baby won’t help you.”
Nusslock’s bleeding drove 12 miles to Mad River Community Hospital at the advice of a doctor in St. Joseph’s Emergency Room, where the twins were sent and one spontaneously sent through an abortion procedure.
“‘If you try to drive [to UCSF]You will bleeding and die before you reach a place that can help you. ” Dr. St. Joseph told her.
In December, another woman sued Eureka hospital for alleging that she was denied similar care during three separate miscarriages.
In the first incident described in her claim, she traveled for five and a half hours to San Francisco for help. The second time, she needed two units of blood to recover from preventable bleeding. In the third time, she claimed she was left to the hospital toilet.
The lawsuit says the woman is now suffering post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression, “because of the only major hospital in her county, it is now the only labor force and childbirth department care.”
“St. Joseph of Providence is of course the hospital where she will give birth next time because the plaintiff is desperately trying to have a baby,” the lawsuit said.
The hospital denies wrongdoing in court documents.
With the merger of American hospitals, Catholic groups are now growing numbers. According to the American Catholic Hospital Association One in seven Patients in the United States receive care in one of the facilities. More than 15% of American babies are born in the delivery room of Catholic hospitals.
The Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion in 2022 after its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Healthcare, about twenty states were restricted or banned, with about half of them narrowed by life and death cases.
But many Catholic hospitals in abortion protection states, such as California, have also denied termination in cases such as Nuslowke.
“Unfortunately, these rejections are nothing new,” Bell said. “But the situation is even more terrifying.”
Although St. Joseph agreed to provide emergency abortion care last fall, the hospital has since reversed the course in an attempt to violate its First Amendment right to religious freedom with violations in order to dismiss the Justice Department lawsuit.
The motion said: “SJH cannot comply with such an order without giving up its Catholic identity – the ultimate burden in the religious freedom case.”
Bonta said the hospital is breaking the law.
“It is unclear: admitting that they have and will continue to violate a law requiring them to take full care of patients suffering from life-threatening emergencies, and SJH is now asking the court to tolerate their actions by dismissing the action,” the state opposed the motion. ”
The court is scheduled to make a decision on this issue on May 15.
Meanwhile, Nuslowk said the hospital’s actions rigidified her determination.
“It feels cruel and it continues to feel cruel,” Nuslowk said. “You are putting this religious policy in my real life.”
