California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit Monday against a Humboldt County hospital accused of breaking state law by failing to provide emergency abortion services to a woman whose life was endangered by a failed pregnancy.
The suit claims that Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka illegally denied an abortion to Anna Nusslock, who was 15 weeks pregnant with twin girls, despite recommendations from her doctors that she receive the procedure.
Nusslock went to the hospital in February after experiencing increased bleeding and pain for a week and after her water broke prematurely earlier in the evening.
She was diagnosed with previable preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM) and told there was no possibility of her twins surviving.
Nusslock was also told that she was at an increased risk of serious complications, including infections and hemorrhaging, that could result in permanent harm or death.
Despite this, however, she was informed that Providence St. Joseph Hospital policy forbade abortion care in her case because one of her twins still had a detectable heart tone and her own life wasn't yet sufficiently at risk, according to the suit.
"Without abortion care I risked infection or hemorrhage, both of which are so dangerous to my health and my life and these risks increase with every minute that passed," Nusslock said Monday at a news conference announcing the lawsuit.
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"I needed an abortion to protect myself against these risks, and I needed an abortion so that my husband didn't lose both of his daughters and his wife in one night," she said.
Doctors initially told Nusslock that she should be helicoptered to University of California, San Francisco Medical Center for treatment but she declined knowing her insurance wouldn't cover the estimated $40,000 cost of the flight.
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When she asked if she could be driven to San Francisco instead, her doctor told her, "If you try to drive, you will hemorrhage and die before you get to a place that can help you."
Nusslock was eventually released from Providence St. Joseph Hospital, offered a bucketful of towels in case she needed them in the car, and told to make the 20-minute trip to another provider, Mad River Community Hospital, where she was eventually able to receive the care she needed.
"Even in California, a champion for reproductive freedom, we are not immune from practices like the one we're seeing today, and we will not stand by as it occurs," Bonta said Monday.
The suit claims Providence St. Joseph Hospital's policy bars doctors from providing lifesaving or stabilizing emergency abortion care even when the pregnancy is not viable.
Such a policy is forbidden by California's Emergency Services Law, the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the Unfair Competition Law, according to the suit.
In addition to the suit, which seeks a permanent end to the policy, Bonta said he asked the Humboldt County Superior Court for a preliminary injunction to prevent the hospital from enforcing the policy immediately.
"It is damning that here in California, where abortion care is a constitutional right, we have a hospital implementing a policy that's reminiscent of heartbeat laws in extremist red states," Bonta said.
Providence St. Joseph Hospital officials didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
