(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . A young woman I know almost died of an ectopic pregnancy last week [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-19 Women across the red states are now suffering the consequences of abortion bans—here in Kentucky, there have been recent news articles about women who have suffered needlessly when they had pregnancy complications, and were unable to receive proper care here and had to travel out of state. The stories that make it into the news media are the tip of the iceberg, however. Among the fellow healthcare workers I know, there are numerous tales being whispered about the kinds of cases that are coming up in OBGYN departments in the area—women who can afford to do so are having to travel out of state in order to end non-viable pregnancies, while those who cannot afford to travel are made to suffer—like the 12 year old in foster care who will be forced to give birth—and several other very young girls as well. Then there is the story about the pregnant woman who was in a car accident, miscarried as a result of the impact, but was forced to wait until the fetus’s heartbeat stopped so the doctor’s could remove the dead fetus, and stop her internal bleeding. I could write a long diary repeating the gossip floating around the healthcare community in my area. You won’t hear of most of these kinds of stories in the media, however, because many hospitals are forbidding their doctors to speak out publicly. I wonder how many women are being negatively impacted by the abortion bans across the state, if there are so many stories in just my community alone. Last week, one of these stories hit close to home. A young woman my daughter went to high school with recently found out she was pregnant, but since she could not ask her right wing family for help, started saving money, secretly, and on her own, to go to Illinois in order to get a medication abortion. But then a couple of weeks ago, she started having some abdominal pain, and she asked my daughter to ask me what she should do. Based on the symptoms she described, I advised her to go and get checked at the ER. As it turns out, she was having an ectopic pregnancy. The OBGYN on call told her that before Roe vs. Wade was reversed, the way they would have treated her ectopic pregnancy was by administering one or more injections of methotrexate in order to stop the embryo from developing—which either causes the body to pass it out of the fallopian tube, or to reabsorb it. This is done to reduce the risk of the fallopian tube rupturing. However, since this treatment also terminates the pregnancy, according to the doctor, the hospital could no longer provide this service. They sent her home, and told her she should try to go to a state where abortion was legal in order to get the treatment. She spent the next week trying to get the money together to go to Illinois—the closest place from here where abortion is legal. Her plan was to get enough money together for gas and a hotel room, and then just show up at the ER. She was going to tell them she was travelling when she started having symptoms—she has no insurance, and works a low paying waitress job, and she was desperate to get some help. But before she could get her money together, the worst happened—she woke up during the night with intense abdominal pain due to the rupture of the fallopian tube . Luckily, she had someone with her who could take her to the hospital. Because the ectopic pregnancy was low in the fallopian tube, she ended up having her ovary, her fallopian tube, and part of her uterus removed. The doctors told her she was lucky to have survived. But if it were not for Kentucky’s barbaric anti-abortion law, there is a good chance the methotrexate would have prevented her from having a rupture and endangering her life! Not to mention the life changing effects having a hysterectomy will have on her. My daughter told me she had told her once that she wanted to have kids after she was older and in a more stable financial situation. Now she will never be able to carry a pregnancy to term—her only hope at having a biological child of her own would involve the use of a surrogate mother, provided her remaining ovary is normal and it is possible to extract eggs for invitro fertilization. And then, of course, she could also end up with a bunch of medical bills. Hopefully she will qualify for medicaid, and this will help her with the financial aspect of all this. Funny how you never hear the forced birthers talk about helping the women they want to force to continue even the most dangerous pregnancy pay for all of the medical costs they are going to incur as a result of their period of gestational slavery. The right wing fetus cultists do not care how many women and girls they kill and maim in order to force their sick religious beliefs on the rest of us. If you are a female living in a red state, your life is literally in danger if you become pregnant. And even if you are no longer capable of becoming pregnant, your choices of treatment for any number of conditions may be limited, or at least complicated, by the fact that providers are having to be so careful about accidentally terminating a pregnancy. Some doctors I know are requiring every woman, not matter how old, to have a pregnancy test before they will do any sort of procedure on her—even something as simple as a steroid shot. I am working on getting my family out of here. I have seen enough. Once I pay off all my medical bills, I am going to continue working my three jobs until I can make enough for us to move. I also got my daughter into a training program that will help her get a decent job in the medical field once we leave here. I might have to give up some of the good benefits i have at my current job, but i also need to protect my family. I most certainly don’t want my other daughter, who is severely autistic, to live in a place like this. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/19/2153909/-A-young-woman-I-know-almost-died-of-an-ectopic-pregnancy-last-week Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/