California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against a Catholic hospital after a patient was refused “abortion care” and sent to the closest secular hospital.
Bonta accused Providence Hospital in Eureka, California of violating several state laws when it refused to perform an abortion for Anna Nusslock because her situation was deemed an emergency.
Speaking alongside Bonta, Nusslock said she was 15 weeks pregnant when doctors concluded her unborn twins were not viable and that failure to procure an abortion immediately risked her own health.
Doctors at the Catholic hospital detected “heart tones” and refused to perform the abortion. Nusslock said she was offered a towel and a bucket at the time of her discharge.
She subsequently went to the closest non-Catholic facility, Mad River Community Hospital, where she had the abortion.
In addition to the lawsuit, the attorney general requested an injunction that would require Providence Hospital to perform any emergency surgeries, including an abortion, which he termed “standard medical care”.
He noted that Mad River Community Hospital was due to close its maternity ward this autumn. “With a dire lack of services, even here in California, and an influx of patients from states with abortion bans, we need hospitals to follow the law,” Bonta said.
California statutes require all hospitals “to relieve or eliminate the emergency medical condition”, though both the California and US constitutions guarantee freedom of religion.
Constitutional provisions normally outweigh statutes so forcing Catholic institutions to perform abortions would likely be ruled unconstitutional. However, different states continue to struggle to apply restrictions to the procedure, particularly in clinical situations such as Ms Nusslock’s.
Amid these debates, both Catholic and secular hospitals have been cutting back obstetric provision. Closures of services have been driven by factors including low reimbursement rates from insurance companies, the expense of treatments for premature births, and lower demand as birth rates decline, especially in rural areas like Eureka.
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