California’s Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta continued his crusade against pro-life institutions Monday, filing a lawsuit against a Catholic hospital, Providence St. Joseph of Eureka, for not promptly aborting a mother’s twins.
“With today’s lawsuit, I want to make this clear for all Californians: Abortion care is health care. You have the right to access timely and safe abortion services,” said Bonta. “At the California Department of Justice, we will use the full force of this office to hold accountable those who, like Providence, are breaking the law.”
According to the complaint, Anna Nusslock visited Providence after her water prematurely broke and she began bleeding. A doctor allegedly diagnosed Nusslock, then 15 weeks pregnant, with previable premature pre-labor rupture of membranes and told the mother that while both twins had heart tones, one of them was sure to perish and the fate of the other baby was uncertain.
Another doctor at University of California San Francisco Medical Center told Nusslock over the phone that there was only a remote chance that the second twin might survive.
‘We have a hospital implementing a policy that’s reminiscent of heartbeat laws in extremist red states.’
The hospital, which recently saved the life of a baby boy born 96 days early, allegedly informed Nusslock that policy precluded medical professionals there from providing an an “emergency” abortion as long as one of the babies had a “detectable heartbeat” or unless there was an immediate risk to Nusslock’s life.
“It is damning that here in California, where abortion care is a constitutional right, we have a hospital implementing a policy that’s reminiscent of heartbeat laws in extremist red states,” Bonta said of the apparent policy against elective abortions.
The complaint noted that the hospital initially recommended that Nusslock be helicoptered to the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, but she declined, unwilling to be separated from her husband and convinced that her insurance would not cover the cost. The hospital then allegedly discharged Nusslock with free towels and instructions to drive to Mad River Community Hospital, roughly 20 minutes away.
The lawsuit accuses the hospital of violating the Unruh Civil Rights Act, violating the health code’s nonmedical transfer provision, and violating the state’s Emergency Services Law, which requires hospitals to provide care “necessary to relieve or eliminate the emergency medical condition.”
A spokesman for the hospital said in a statement to ABC News that “Providence is deeply committed to the health and wellness of women and pregnant patients and provides emergency services to all who walk through our doors in accordance with state and federal law. We are heartbroken over Dr. Nusslock’s experience earlier this year.”
“This morning was the first Providence had heard of the California attorney general’s lawsuit, and we are currently reviewing the filings to understand what is being alleged,” continued the spokesman. “Because this case is in active litigation and due to patient confidentiality, we cannot comment on the matter,” the spokesperson added.
In his remarks, Bonta bemoaned the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent refusal to qualify abortion as among the varieties of “stabilizing care” required of every hospital with an emergency department participating in Medicare under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
Without such a federal mandate conflating stability with the termination of human life, Bonta indicated that “states like California have to rely on their own state laws to protect pregnant patients.”
Bonta has not only worked to combat policies ostensibly designed to protect life in his state but in other states as well. Last year, he joined New York Attorney General Letitia James in leading a coalition to back the Biden-Harris administration’s challenge to Idaho’s popular and democratically passed pro-life law. They failed.
Bonta also sued Heartbeat International last year and a chain of crisis pregnancy centers over their promotion of medical abortion reversal. That case has yet to be decided.
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