Texas Hospital Broke Law Denying Emergency Abortion Care

A Texas woman was sent home twice while suffering from a life-threatening pregnancy. Now, the hospital that turned her away has been found in violation of federal law.

36-year-old Kyleigh Thurman was bleeding and in pain when she first arrived at Ascension Seton Williamson in Round Rock, Texas. Despite clear signs of an ectopic pregnancy, a condition that’s nonviable and potentially fatal, she was dismissed with a pamphlet on miscarriage. No OBGYN exam, no treatment, just vague information.

Three days later, Thurman returned to the hospital for more pregnancy complications but still received little help. Thurman's fallopian tube eventually ruptured and an emergency surgery saved her life, but not her fertility.

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“I didn’t want anyone else to have to go through this,” Thurman said in an interview with the Associated Press, “I put a lot of the responsibility on the state."

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ruled the hospital violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal law requiring ERs to stabilize patients regardless of state restrictions. But that clarity didn’t last long.

This week, CMS announced it’s revoking the Biden-era guidance that spelled out protections for emergency abortions in states like Texas.

According to CMS, the law technically still stands. But if hospitals no longer feel compelled to act, especially in states like Texas where doctors face criminal penalties for doing so, the results could be devastating.

“We see patients with miscarriages being denied care, bleeding out in parking lots. We see patients with nonviable pregnancies being told to continue those to term,” said Molly Duane, an attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights.

“You cannot predict the ways a pregnancy can go,” Thurman said. “It can happen to anyone, still. There’s still so many ways in which pregnancies that aren’t ectopic can be deadly.”