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Another woman has died at the hands of Roe v. Wade’s overturn.
According to ProPublica, 35-year-old Porsha Ngumezi of Texas was denied proper medical care for a miscarriage due to her state’s strict abortion ban.
Ngumezi, a mother of two, suffered a miscarriage at 11 weeks on June 11, 2023 and experienced heavy bleeding. Nurses said Ngumezi was “passing large clots the size of grapefruit.” Due to the excess bleeding, Ngumezi had two blood transfusions in the emergency room at Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital.
Ngumezi’s mother-in-law, a former physician, advised her to get a dilation and curettage (D&C), a procedure where a curette is used to scrape the uterine lining, which removes the baby from inside the uterus. D&Cs are performed during the first trimester for miscarriages and abortions.
However, Ngumezi’s doctor said it was “routine” for the hospital to treat the miscarriage with a drug called misoprostol.
“The mindset I had that day was, ‘They’re the experts, right?’ I know they have seen miscarriages many times, so they are well equipped to know what to do,” Ngumezi’s husband, Hope, said.
Ngumezi died three hours after receiving the drug. According to the medical examiner, Ngumezi’s cause of death was hemorrhage.
“It could have been prevented,” Hope said. “It felt like everyone turned their backs on us during that day.”
According to ProPublica, dozens of doctors reviewed Ngumezi’s case and concluded that her death was preventable. Experts said misoprostol is too risky to use when a mother is experiencing heavy bleeding and a D&C should’ve been performed.
“Misoprostol at 11 weeks is not going to work fast enough,” Dr. Amber Truehart, an OB-GYN at the University of New Mexico Center for Reproductive Health, said. “The patient will continue to bleed and have a higher risk of going into hemorrhagic shock.”
Texas’ abortion ban mandates doctors not to perform the procedure unless the mother’s life is deemed at risk. Doctors can face up to 99 years in prison for violating the law, which has led many medical professionals to avoid D&Cs even for miscarriages.
“Stigma and fear are there for D&Cs in a way that they are not for misoprostol,” Dr. Alison Goulding, an OB-GYN in Houston, said. “Doctors assume that a D&C is not standard in Texas anymore, even in cases where it should be recommended. People are afraid: They see D&C as abortion and abortion as illegal.”
Ngumezi’s death marks the 5th report that could’ve been prevented if not for Roe v. Wade’s overturn.
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