An Oklahoma woman with a fatal pregnancy complication claims she was told she could not be treated until her condition became critical due to the state’s abortion ban.
Stay-at-home mom-of-three Jesse Staton, 25, has been diagnosed with a carcinoid molar pregnancy while expecting her fourth child, which means the fetus has too many chromosomes and the fetus cannot survive. In Mrs. Stratton’s case, the tissue was also precancerous.
But the state has banned all abortions unless it’s to save a pregnant woman’s life, which means many different hospitals have said they can only treat her if she’s “crashed in front of us or your blood pressure is so high that you’re trying to get a heart attack.”
Molar pregnancies require surgery to remove the molar tissue, which can be done by emergency dilatation and curettage (D&C) abortion. BMs. Staton and her husband were forced to drive three hours to the abortion clinic in Kansas offering the procedure.
The longer the fetus remains inside the mother, the higher the risk of internal bleeding, kidney and liver failure, and even stroke.
Stay-at-home mom-of-three Jackie Staton, 25, started feeling sick during her pregnancy and then experienced a sudden, heavy bleeding in mid-March 2023.
Mrs. Staton has three children – two boys aged seven and eight. She was pregnant with her fourth child when she developed a precancerous molar pregnancy
During her pregnancy in mid-March, Ms. Stratton had a sudden severe bleeding episode and rushed straight to the emergency room.
The majority of molar pregnancies are benign, but 15 percent of cases, Ms. Staton’s included, can be precancerous.
About one in 1,000 pregnancies in the United States are molar pregnancies, compared to one in 590 in the United Kingdom.
Treatment for this condition is emergency dilatation and curettage (D&C) abortion, which involves removing the pregnancy tissue in the uterus.
She went to three hospitals within a week after learning of the condition, but everyone told her they couldn’t touch her because of Oklahoma laws.
The latter told her to wait in the parking lot.
Mrs. Staton Tell NPR: ‘They were very sincere. They weren’t trying to be mean.
They said, “The best we can tell you is sit in the parking lot, and if anything else happens, we’ll be ready to help you. But we can only touch you if you crash in front of us or in front of your blood pressure gets so high that you’re trying to have a heart attack.”
More than a dozen states restricted access to abortions after Roe V. Wade’s coup
Mrs. Staton with her husband, Dustin Staton. The couple had to drive three hours to Kansas to receive the necessary treatment
Oklahoma has one of the strictest abortion laws. In May last year, the state’s Republican governor, Kevin State, banned terminations from the moment of fertilization.
The only exceptions are to save the life of a pregnant woman or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest reported to law enforcement.
Although Oklahoma laws allow a life-saving abortion for a pregnant woman, it can be difficult to say, and doctors deal with confusion and fear of litigation when determining whether an abortion is legal in each case.
Although doctors admitted she was at risk of bleeding and even death, hospitals said they could not treat her.
It also allows them to remove an ectopic pregnancy, a potentially life-threatening emergency that occurs when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, often in the fallopian tube and early in pregnancy.
A study published Tuesday, along with a commentary in The Lancet, shows that hospitals in Oklahoma have difficulty interpreting laws and enacting policies that comply with them.
As a result, women like Mrs. Staton end up in dangerous situations.
Eventually her doctors advised her to leave Oklahoma and travel to a state where abortion is legal.
Ms. Staton and her husband drove three hours to an abortion clinic in Kansas where they could get to a D&C center.
You will now have to undergo another surgery to remove more cancerous tissue and may require chemotherapy.
Ms. Staton said it was mentally difficult and said “something needs to be done” about Oklahoma’s abortion laws.
(tags to translate) Daily Mail
