Doctor's Religious Belief Almost kills ER Patient

[NJMaverick]

Abortion saved my life
I almost died in an emergency room because the doctor on call refused to perform a necessary procedure

Quote:I’m a mom, and I love my sons more than anything. And it is because I love them that I had an abortion at 20 weeks. It was my fifth pregnancy (I’d had two earlier miscarriages), and, as it turned out, my last. There was trouble from the beginning; I didn’t experience any of the normal indicators of pregnancy, so I was already ten weeks along when I found out. I hadn’t so much as missed a period; in fact, I was seeing an OB/GYN because of the increased heaviness in my cycle. When we found out, I talked it over with my husband and we debated an abortion before deciding we’d try to make it work. My doctor told me that my pregnancy was very high risk and that she wasn’t sure of a good outcome. Per her instructions, I took it very easy because I wanted to give the baby the best possible chance. But I kept having intermittent bleeding and I knew there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to carry to term.

I was taking an afternoon nap when the hemorrhaging started while my toddler napped in his room when I woke up to find blood gushing upward from my body. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was experiencing a placental abruption, a complication my doctor had told me was a possibility. My husband was at work, so I had to do my best to take care of me and my toddler on my own. I managed to get to the phone and make arrangements for both of my children before going to a Chicago hospital.

Everyone knew the pregnancy wasn’t viable, that it couldn’t be viable given the amount of blood I was losing, but it still took hours for anyone at the hospital to do anything. The doctor on call didn’t do abortions. At all. Ever. In fact, no one on call that night did. Meanwhile, an ignorant batch of medical students had gathered to study me — one actually showed me the ultrasound of our dying child while asking me if it was a planned pregnancy. Several wanted to examine me while I lay there bleeding and in pain. No one gave me anything for the pain or even respected my request to close the door even though I was on the labor and delivery floor listening to other women have healthy babies as the baby I had been trying to save died in my womb.

http://www.salon.com/2011/05/26/abortion_saved_my_life/

[Still a Democrat]

If your religous beliefs preclude you from providing medical services, you can't be a doctor. Pretty simple.

[janedrake]

My heart goes out to this woman. What an awful ordeal.

[sandnsea]

I remember when I was young and women lost babies due to complications in pregnancy. They used to garner sympathy. Now they're objects for ridicule and humiliation. In the name of Christ. When the current generation of abortion doctors dies, I suspect the next generation of women will find themselves in this kind of predicament regularly. There won't be anybody who knows how to do an abortion, regardless of whether they have religious beliefs or not.

[Hekate]

That article is heartbreaking -- and had my mother's GP not been the good man he was, my brother and I would have been orphaned before kindergarten and we would not have had two more siblings.

The behavior of the docs and med students at Mikki Kendall's hospital was straight out of the Dark Ages of medicine for women. There ought to be a law -- in fact there IS a law -- and I hope she and her husband sued for malpractice.

[jaxx]

I am picturing the doctor looking like Eric Cantor with a smirk on his face. No one who allows a woman to bleed to death should be allowed to practice medicine. The dark ages were supposed to be over, but here we are.

[SeattleGirl]

(02-16-2012 10:17 PM)jaxx Wrote:  I am picturing the doctor looking like Eric Cantor with a smirk on his face. No one who allows a woman to bleed to death should be allowed to practice medicine. The dark ages were supposed to be over, but here we are.

I agree, jaxx. If you are a doctor or a pharmacist or a nurse or anyone else who works in the field of medicine, but your "beliefs" prevent you from dispensing legal medication or performing legal -- and necessary -- medical procedures, you might want to think about getting into another profession, like maybe snake handler.