Summary
Eighteen-year-old Nevaeh Crain died from sepsis after Texas’s abortion ban delayed critical medical intervention during her pregnancy complications.
Despite multiple ER visits and severe symptoms, doctors waited to confirm fetal demise before acting due to the state’s restrictive laws. Crain endured intense pain and deteriorating health over multiple hospital visits, ultimately suffering a miscarriage and passing away from internal bleeding.
Medical experts believe timely intervention could have saved her. Her mother, Candace Fails, is pursuing legal accountability but faces significant legal hurdles under Texas’s stringent emergency care standards.
This is tragic and sadly entirely predictable given the Texas laws.
A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban
“From 2019 to 2022, the rate of maternal mortality cases in Texas rose by 56%, compared with just 11% nationwide during the same time period”
If you have a pregnant loved one, get them the hell out of Texas.
Don’t even visit while pregnant.
Things can happen suddenly and you might not be able to get out to save your life.
Imagine being a doctor in this scenario. You could save them. You have the tools, the capabilities, the facility. But you have to let them die or risk ruining your own life. There are no winners here.
Maybe the saddest part about all of this is due to the structure of American politics and the vitriol right wing voters have for people they deem “others,” there are, sadly, perceived “winners.”
And if you’re really dedicated to being a person who saves lives and its a big part of your personal identity, you’d also be risking the lives of the future people you’d be able to help and your identity as a person who saves lives. You can’t help this one person in this specific life threatening situation but there’s other peripartum hemorrhages you could help and many more you could try to keep out of that condition to begin with. But to do that you have to let this one person die despite knowing how to help them too. Absolute shit sandwich.
I’m working on developing a better work life balance but for the longest time working as a nurse has been the thing I stuck around on ye olde mortal coil for. It’s what was worth sticking around to try and get through all that therapy for. I won’t try to say it’s healthy but if I lost my license I don’t really have a whole lot left to stick around for.
I hope you stick around. We need nurses so badly and we have so few.
Laughs in heritage foundation