California has sued a Humboldt County hospital after a patient said she was denied an emergency abortion earlier this year even as she feared for her life because of miscarriage risks.
Fifteen weeks pregnant with twins, Anna Nusslock rushed to Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka in February, in pain and severely bleeding after her water broke far too soon, according to a lawsuit California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed against the Catholic hospital on Monday. The suit accuses Providence hospital of violating multiple California laws by denying Nusslock abortion care and seeks a court order ensuring that no other patients are denied emergency abortions.
At the hospital, Nusslock said she was diagnosed with a premature rupture of the membrane of the amniotic sac — a dangerous complication in which an abortion is a recommended treatment.
Doctors deemed that one of the twins would not survive, and that the other’s chances were extremely low. They agreed Nusslock needed an abortion as soon as possible to stave off an infection or hemorrhage, the lawsuit says.
But Nusslock said she was told that because of “hospital policy” an abortion couldn’t be done because her life was not at enough risk and since one twin still had traceable “heart tones.” A doctor suggested she take a helicopter to a hospital nearly 300 miles south in San Francisco and warned that she would die if she tried to make the nearly five hour drive instead, she said.
A nurse handed her a bucket full of towels for the road to help with the bleeding, the suit alleges, and she ended up spontaneously delivering one of the twins and hemorrhaging at Mad River Community Hospital, located 12 miles away on California’s rural North Coast.
“I’ll never forget looking at my doctor, tears streaming down my face, my heart shattered into a million pieces and just pleading with her, ‘Don’t let me die,’ ” Nusslock said at a press conference at the attorney general’s office in Sacramento on Monday. “My daughters deserved better, and I deserved better.”
The case exposes gaps in abortion care in California, home to the nation’s strongest reproductive rights protections, where abortion access is enshrined in the state constitution, even after the U.S. Supreme Court revoked a federal right to the procedure in 2022 that resulted in abortion bans in Republican-led states.
“Here in California, where we’re proud to be a beacon of reproductive justice, we’ve got a hospital policy reminiscent of heartbeat laws in extremist red states,” Bonta said Monday. “Even in California, a champion for reproductive freedom, we are not immune from practices like the one we’re seeing today, and we will not stand by as it occurs.”
Bonta alleges that Providence hospital violated California’s Emergency Services Law — which mandates care at emergency rooms regardless of any ethical concerns from providers — as well as business discrimination laws and fraudulent business practices laws.
A spokesperson for Providence said the company is reviewing the lawsuit’s allegations.
“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 Nusslock’s experience earlier this year,” said Bryan Kawasaki, director of national communications.
Religious affiliated hospitals cannot be forced to perform elective abortions, but California law requires emergency health care providers to provide medical services to patients “in danger of loss of life or serious injury or illness.”
The law makes no religious exception for abortion services when a hospital like the one Nusslock went to operates an emergency department.
Nusslock and her husband had been trying to have a baby for years — saying “there’s nothing more we want in this world” than to be parents. They experienced multiple miscarriages. After finding out she was pregnant with twins, she said they were cautiously optimistic. They bought matching baby outfits; decorated their nursery and dreamed of taking them to a pumpkin patch for holiday photos.
Her grief turned into anger once she recovered from the rupture and emergency abortion, and she reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union about what actions she could take to keep other mothers from experiencing the same. The ACLU directed her to the attorney general’s office.
“I am here today to tell my story for one simple reason, because I don’t want other people in my community to experience the same life threatening trauma that I experienced,” Nusslock said after she took a deep breath standing behind a podium alongside Bonta and her attorney.
Bonta — who called Nusslock’s case “tragic and infuriating” — urged the court to work as quickly as possible as Mad River Community Hospital, where Nusslock ultimately received her abortion, plans to close its labor and delivery units next month.
“The next person in Anna’s situation will face an agonizing choice of risking a multi-hour drive to another hospital or waiting until they are close enough to death for Providence to intervene,” Bonta said.