To the editor: The scenario that a patient who suffers a miscarriage is denied medical treatment is not hypothetical. It's reality, I know it because I lived it. (“How the treatment of miscarriages is revolutionizing the abortion debate,” April 25)
In 1989, while living in Florida, I suffered a miscarriage when I was 14 weeks pregnant. Because my health insurance required me to go to a particular hospital (that did not allow abortions), my obstetrician was unable to provide me with the care I needed to prevent sepsis.
I came home and bled profusely for another week. Clearly frustrated by the hospital rule, my OB finally told me to meet him in the emergency department. There, he guided the nurse who was pushing my wheelchair toward the elevators while he ignored the protests from the admissions desk. He performed the necessary procedure.
My care was not illegal at that time. My OB had been on the medical staff for decades and wasn't worried that he might get a “slap on the wrist” for performing a D&C. I was more worried about my health.
Today, in Florida, where abortion is prohibited for six weeks, a doctor might fear arrest for providing such care. I wasn't yet so sick that my life was in immediate danger, but I could have eventually developed sepsis. He could have killed me and left my little one motherless.
If this happened when abortion was legal, imagine what is happening now in many states where it is not.
JK Hinger, Simi Valley
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To the editor: I disagree with your editorial board's assertion that abortion laws like Idaho's treat women as incubators.
Women's lives are cheap, but incubators are expensive equipment. No state in the country would require health centers to suspend service until the unit was on the verge of total exhaustion.
Shelley Wagers, Los Angeles
