HOUSTON, Texas -- A 28-year-old Texas woman died in 2021 after her abortion care was delayed for over 40 hours as she was having a miscarriage, according to a new story from ProPublica . The video above is from a previous report . Josseli Barnica was told that it would be a "crime" to intervene in her miscarriage because the fetus still had cardiac activity, despite her 17-week pregnancy already resulting in a miscarriage that was "in progress," according to medical records obtained by ProPublica.
The medical team told Barnica that she had to wait until there was no heartbeat due to Texas' new abortion ban, Barnica's husband told ProPublica. Despite Texas enacting several abortion bans after the U.S.
Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, it was the first state to restrict the procedure by enacting a law that permitted citizens to sue physicians who provide abortion care after six weeks of pregnancy -- before most women know they are pregnant -- for $10,000. Anyone who "aided and abetted" an abortion, by actions such as driving a woman to obtain abortion care, could also be sued.
Forty hours after Barnica had arrived at a Texas hospital, physicians could not detect fetal cardiac activity and she was given medication to speed up her labor, according to the report. She was discharged about eight hours later, according to ProPublica. SEE ALSO: Texas man drops lawsuit against women he accused of helping his ex-wife get abortion pills She continued bleeding but when she cal.
