International- Doctors in
Louisiana say patients have already suffered under the state'sabortion ban. - One described her patient enduring a painful, bloody labor while having a miscarriage at 16 weeks.
A Louisiana woman experiencing a miscarriage at 16 weeks of pregnancy was forced to endure a painful, bloody, and traumatizing labor and delivery, according to a sworn affidavit from her OB/GYN, after she was denied a simple 15-minute procedure due to the state's abortion ban.
"She was already traumatized from her experience and felt that an induction, which would require labor and delivery of the fetus, would be too much for her," Dr. Valerie Williams said in court documents obtained by Insider.
But the hospital's lawyer immediately told Williams she couldn't perform the D&E due to Louisiana's trigger ban.
"Going back into that hospital room and telling the patient that she would have to be induced and push out the fetus was one of the hardest conversations I've ever had," Williams said.
Williams' affidavit, filed in Louisiana's 19th Judicial District Court as part of a lawsuit against the state, offered multiple examples of how Louisiana's abortion ban that automatically took effect last month when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade have already impacted reproductive health care and directly harmed her patients.
Abortion access in Louisiana has fluctuated multiple times in recent weeks. Currently, a temporary restraining order is in place that permits abortion access while the issue is being litigated. On Tuesday, Judge Donald Johnson ordered the TRO remain in place until July 29.
But when Louisiana's abortion ban was in effect earlier in July, Williams said one of her patients' water broke at just 16 weeks of pregnancy — far too early to be viable. Williams said her patient requested a procedure called a D&E, meaning dilation and evacuation, which would "quickly and safely end the pregnancy" in roughly 15 minutes.
Rather than perform the D&E, Williams had to watch while her patient "was forced to go through a painful, hours-long labor to deliver a nonviable fetus, despite her wishes and best medical advice."
Williams said her patient took additional hours to deliver the placenta, began hemorrhaging, and lost nearly a liter of blood before Williams could stop the bleeding.
"She was screaming — not from pain, but from the emotional trauma she was experiencing," Williams said. "There is absolutely no medical basis for my patient, or any other patient in this state, to experience anything like this. This was the first time in my 15-year career that I could not give a patient the care they needed. This is a travesty."
That wasn't Williams' only horror story. Her affidavit also described a patient who became pregnant despite using birth control and sought an abortion the weekend after the Supreme Court's decision came down.
"She told me that she hoped the pregnancy was ectopic so she could get treated in Louisiana, rather than having to leave the state," Williams said, referring to a pregnancy in which the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus and must be removed.
"It is horrific that patients are hoping to have a life-threatening health complication so that they can get appropriate care," Williams said.
Williams and other abortion providers in Louisiana have argued that the state's trigger law is far too vague. The law makes exceptions for "medically futile" pregnancies and for abortions that would prevent the "death or substantial risk of death to the pregnant woman."
State law, however, does not provide necessary information about what constitutes a "medically futile" pregnancy, they said, even though under the state's trigger law doctors could face prison terms up to 15 years if they perform abortions that don't fall under those exceptions.
Louisiana officials have defended the law and said no further clarifications are necessary. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry wrote in a court filing that the state's law "needs only to delineate what is illegal — not define what is legal."