Post #3462542
2026-06-29 03:38 UTC
Replies (11)
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@JohnSullivan@mastodonapp.uk 2026-06-29 03:56
“Waldorf had spelled out the catch-22 in her journal that morning: “If I need a blood transfusion and it stabilizes my condition, they cannot induce. If my temp continues to spike then they can induce.” When her sister, Rowe, walked in that morning, she found Waldorf with her eyes wide and glazed over, her jaw tensed. Justin slumped on the couch looking defeated. “Are they going to let me die?” Waldorf asked. Rowe had never seen her sister this way; Waldorf was always the calm and practical one when challenges arose. “That’s crazy,” Rowe said. “We’re in a hospital. People come to the hospital for them to save your life, not to let you die.” “
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@JohnSullivan@mastodonapp.uk 2026-06-29 03:43
“When the baby started to emerge, the doctor said, Waldorf shouldn’t pull too hard or she could rip the baby’s head off. She would need to cut the umbilical cord herself and return to the hospital for care in a diaper, her fetus wrapped in towels and the cord hanging between her legs. Waldorf didn’t want her daughter, or herself, to have those memories inside their home. So she begged to stay, and the doctors agreed. No one could predict when the ordeal would be over. “
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@JohnSullivan@mastodonapp.uk 2026-06-29 03:45
“On the day Waldorf was admitted to the hospital, ProPublica had published an investigation on the death of Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old medical assistant who died of infection after doctors delayed emptying her uterus. Thurman left behind a 6-year-old son. “Oh my god, it isn’t just me,” Waldorf thought. “But she died.””
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@JohnSullivan@mastodonapp.uk 2026-06-29 03:47
““This is basic obstetrics,” said Dr. Alison Goulding, a maternal-fetal-medicine specialist in Texas. “Everyone should know that you have to provide an abortion in these settings or women can die.” For 40 hours, Barnica waited in the hospital for the heartbeat to stop, with her cervix exposed to bacteria. She died three days after she delivered, ProPublica reported in October 2024; the cause was a deadly infection. The hospital declined to comment on Barnica’s case but said “our responsibility is to be in compliance with applicable state and federal laws and regulations” and physicians exercise their independent judgment.”
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@JohnSullivan@mastodonapp.uk 2026-06-29 03:50
“On her fourth morning in the hospital, Waldorf was sitting on the toilet when she felt something heavy fall. There was so much blood, she couldn’t see what it was. She thought it was the baby, but a nurse confirmed it was a blood clot, 3 inches across. Waldorf’s water had broken. All morning, she watched the amniotic fluid drain out of her. Now there was virtually no chance the fetus’s lungs would develop to reach the edge of viability in seven weeks. There was only the risk of infection, growing every passing hour. She was convinced that this meant the doctors would finally have to induce her to avoid infection. But after confirming that her fetus still had heart tones, the OB-GYN on duty, Dr. Britte Smith, said she couldn’t induce yet. First she’d need to consult the hospital’s risk-management team. “Oh,” Waldorf thought. “I’m a liability.””
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@JohnSullivan@mastodonapp.uk 2026-06-29 03:51
“Smith returned about two hours later, Waldorf recalled, and told her she had two options: She could remain under observation at the hospital, or she could get into her car and drive nearly four hours to Kansas, a state with no abortion ban, where doctors could induce her. The hospital would not authorize a transfer or arrange to send her in an ambulance, and it offered no explanation for why. Medical records note that the risk-management team was consulted twice over the next 31 hours, and Smith wrote: “Since there is still a heartbeat and no signs of maternal infection, we can not proceed” with induction of labor. Smith did not respond to requests for comment. “
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@JohnSullivan@mastodonapp.uk 2026-06-29 03:52
“Waldorf’s sister, Elizabeth Rowe, had almost died of hemorrhaging during childbirth, so the family felt an hourslong drive to Kansas through rural roads without medical support was not an option. Waldorf’s family and friends were shocked she was running into so many obstacles. Her father, a gastroenterologist named Kenneth Rodgers, was baffled. “You don’t sit around and wait for somebody to become septic. You do whatever it takes to prevent them from becoming septic,” he said. “If I don’t do what’s medically indicated in a potentially life-threatening situation, then I am liable for neglect. Why isn’t this the same thing?” “
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@JohnSullivan@mastodonapp.uk 2026-06-29 03:54
““It’s inhumane,” her mother, Linda Quattlebaum, said. “I’m pro-life, but for the mother.” Her husband, Paul Quattlebaum, fumed, “If I took my dog to a vet and it had this problem, that dog would get better treatment.” The next morning, day five, 24 hours had gone by since Waldorf’s water broke. She texted a friend from college that her temperature had risen to 99.3 degrees. “What is next?” her friend, Lindsey Haire, wrote back. “Can they help you now?” “I think it has to be like 100.4,” Waldorf wrote. “They will continue to monitor my temp or my symptoms.” “Dear lord,” Haire responded.”
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@JohnSullivan@mastodonapp.uk 2026-06-29 03:58
“Physicians described hospital lawyers who “refused to meet” with them for months, were “pretty much impossible” to reach during “life or death” scenarios, and offered little help beyond “regurgitating” the law, according to the report. Information on how to handle the legal conflicts between the bans and federal law is usually not written down and, in some cases, is provided only on a “need-to-know” basis. “
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@JohnSullivan@mastodonapp.uk 2026-06-29 03:59
““Hospital leaders and institutional lawyers are basically interpreting these laws so conservatively, and so worried about a criminal charge, that they have forgotten about basic professionalism values of healthcare,” said Dr. Jody Steinauer, a professor of OB-GYN at the University of California, San Francisco who studies the impacts of abortion bans. “
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@JohnSullivan@mastodonapp.uk 2026-06-29 04:01
“Dr. Dina Epstein, an OB-GYN in Little Rock, said she and her colleagues see cases like Waldorf’s often. They are always excruciating. Her patients often panic and beg for help, but none have had the resources to travel to another state for care. Doctors at her hospital are left to negotiate among themselves over what counts as sick enough for them to act, Epstein said. “What organ needs to fail? What thing needs to happen that pushes us over the edge?””