Tragic stories of pregnancy complications made headlines last year, blaming pro-life laws in pro-life states for situations where pregnant women were rejected. the care they need. But a case outside of New York — one of the most pro-abortion states in the country — is further evidence that the problem is not pro-life laws, but negligent doctors.
Kathleen Szekely sent an email to the pro-life organization Secular Pro-Life detailing her story. Szekely is a registered nurse and wrote that what happened to her “illustrates the absurdity of conflating supposedly politically relevant emergency practice.”
He explained, “In my case, a potentially fatal fallopian tube rupture was the result of an ectopic pregnancy. My pregnancy was closely monitored with serial labs and ultrasounds that suspiciously showed no intrauterine sac. [no amniotic sac was visible in the uterus] with an increase in HCG [pregnancy hormone]. After a week or so, a sudden onset of new symptoms was dismissed by my doctor. Even though he had access to my record, he told me I was lost. A few hours later, I ended up in the emergency room for life-saving surgery. I’ve lost enough blood that I need a transfusion too.”
New York law allows abortion within 24 weeks and after 24 weeks for health reasons. But, as defined by Doe against Bolton, “health” reasons for abortion include mental health as well as financial, psychological, and family health. in New York Reproductive Health Actwhich took effect in 2019, fails to define “health” at all, creating a large loophole for an abortionist’s interpretations of the word in the context of abortion.
One such call of ‘judgment’ from abortionists led to the death of a 23-year-old abortion patient in 2017. Keisha Atkins died during a 24-week abortion (6 months) in the pro-abortion New Mexico. Abortionist Shannon Carr had only talked to her for about 20 minutes when she decided to justify a late-term abortion on a healthy, viable baby and healthy mother. She would go on to claim during a deposition about Atkins’ death that her evaluation of Atkins’ mental health was “just… speculation of parenting at a young age as a single mother.” When asked how the pregnancy would cause irreversible damage to Atkins’ mental health, Carr said, “Financially not stable; depression; anxiety,” and admitted it was “speculation on any forward-looking impact [of pregnancy] to his mental health.”
Although New York law states that abortion is only allowed after 24 weeks for “health” reasons, these “health” reasons can cover many situations where the law actually allows to abortion for any reason up to 40 weeks.
READ: The media tries to blame pro-life laws on medical malpractice cases
Szekely said the medical staff he had in New York “definitely had an abortion mindset.”
He explained, “’Is this a pregnancy you have to keep?’ are first words to use for bleeding in early pregnancy. This question stems from a well-known custom in New York state, where abortion is rampant, despite the question being irrelevant to making a decision about my care.”
The first question she was asked at the hospital was whether or not she wanted her child. Even though her ultrasound showed no amniotic sac present in the uterus and the labs showed the pregnancy hormone HCG, the doctors did nothing to verify a dangerous ectopic pregnancy. The surgical procedure to treat an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion, but even in the pro-abortion state, doctors ignored Szekely’s dangerous health condition and put her life at risk.
These situations are not related to political laws but are the direct result of medical negligence.
“So mishandling can happen regardless of the provider’s bias,” Szekely said. “It never occurred to me that this doctor dismissed known symptoms because his organization is openly pro-abortion, the state has open access to abortion, or he himself may be indifferent to prenatal life of the man. His dismissal was a bad call, incompetence, period.”
