Nevaeh Crain died during a miscarriage after trying to get care in Texas hospitals | The Texas Tribune
By: Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana ProPublica (The Texas Tribune)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
It took 20 hours and three ER visits before doctors admitted the pregnant 18-year-old to the hospital as her condition worsened. She's one of at least two women who died under Texas' abortion ban.
By Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana, ProPublica Nov. 1, 20247 hours ago /https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/8c777c7c8e76de3c6102ce1e003c27e7/20241024-Villasana-AbortionDeathsNevaeh-29.JPG)
Candace Fails holds a photograph of her daughter Nevaeh Crain, who died last year after seeking help from two hospitals for pregnancy complications. Credit:AI policyfeedback
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Candace Fails screamed for someone in the Texas hospital to help her pregnant daughter. "Do something," she pleaded, on the morning of Oct. 29, 2023.
Nevaeh Crain was crying in pain, too weak to walk, blood staining her thighs. Feverish and vomiting the day of her baby shower, the 18-year-old had gone to two different emergency rooms within 12 hours, returning home each time worse than before.
The first hospital diagnosed her with strep throat without investigating her sharp abdominal cramps. At the second, she screened positive for sepsis, a life-threatening and fast-moving reaction to an infection, medical records show. But doctors said her six-month fetus had a heartbeat and that Crain was fine to leave.
Now on Crain's third hospital visit, an obstetrician insisted on two ultrasounds to "confirm fetal demise," a nurse wrote, before moving her to intensive care.
By then, more than two hours after her arrival, Crain's blood pressure had plummeted and a nurse had noted that her lips were "blue and dusky." Her organs began failing.
Hours later, she was dead.
Fails, who would have seen her daughter turn 20 this Friday, still cannot understand why Crain's emergency was not treated like an emergency.
But that is what many pregnant women are now facing in states with strict abortion bans, doctors and lawyers have told ProPublica.
"Pregnant women have become essentially untouchables," said Sara Rosenbaum, a health law and policy professor emerita at George Washington University.
Texas's abortion ban threatens prison time for interventions that end a fetal heartbeat, whether the pregnancy is wanted or not. It includes exceptions for life-threatening conditions, but still, doctors told ProPublica that confusion and fear about the potential legal repercussions are changing the way their colleagues treat pregnant patients with complications.
In states with abortion bans, such patients are sometimes bounced between hospitals like "hot potatoes," with health care providers reluctant to participate in treatment that could attract a prosecutor, doctors told ProPublica. In some cases, medical teams are wasting precious time debating legalities and creating documentation, preparing for the possibility that they'll need to explain their actions to a jury and judge.
Dr. Jodi Abbott, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Boston University School of Medicine, said patients are left wondering: "Am I being sent home because I really am OK? Or am I being sent home because they're afraid that the solution to what's going on with my pregnancy would be ending the pregnancy, and they're not allowed to do that?"
There is a federal law to prevent emergency room doctors from withholding lifesaving care.
Passed nearly four decades ago, it requires emergency rooms to stabilize patients in medical crises. The Biden administration argues this mandate applies even in cases where an abortion might be necessary.
No state has done more to fight this interpretation than Texas, which has warned doctors that its abortion ban supersedes the administration's guidance on federal law, and that they can face up to 99 years in prison for violating it.
ProPublica condensed more than 800 pages of Crain's medical records into a four-page timeline in consultation with two maternal-fetal medicine specialists; reporters reviewed it with nine doctors, including researchers at prestigious universities, OB-GYNs who regularly handle miscarriages, and experts in emergency medicine and maternal health.
Some said the first ER missed warning signs of infection that deserved attention. All said that the doctor at the second hospital should never have sent Crain home when her signs of sepsis hadn't improved. And when she returned for the third time, all said there was no medical reason to make her wait for two ultrasounds before taking aggressive action to save her.
"This is how these restrictions kill women," said Dr. Dara Kass, a former regional director at the Department of Health and Human Services and an emergency room physician in New York. "It is never just one decision, it's never just one doctor, it's never just one nurse."
While they were not certain from looking at the records provided that Crain's death could have been prevented, they said it may have been possible to save both the teenager and her fetus if she had been admitted earlier for close monitoring and continuous treatment.
There was a chance Crain could have remained pregnant, they said. If she had needed an early delivery, the hospital was well-equipped to care for a baby on the edge of viability. In another scenario, if the infection had gone too far, ending the pregnancy might have been necessary to save Crain.
Doctors involved in Crain's care did not respond to several requests for comment. The two hospitals, Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas and Christus Southeast Texas St. Elizabeth, declined to answer detailed lists of questions about her treatment.
Fails and Crain believed abortion was morally wrong. The teen could only support it in the context of rape or life-threatening illness, she used to tell her mother. They didn't care whether the government banned it, just how their Christian faith guided their own actions.
When they discovered Crain was pregnant with a girl, the two talked endlessly about the little dresses they could buy, what kind of mother she would be. Crain landed on the name Lillian. Fails could not wait to meet her.
But when her daughter got sick, Fails expected that doctors had an obligation to do everything in their power to stave off a potentially deadly emergency, even if that meant losing Lillian. In her view, they were more concerned with checking the fetal heartbeat than attending to Crain.
"I know it sounds selfish, and God knows I would rather have both of them, but if I had to choose," Fails said, "I would have chosen my daughter."
"I'm in a lot of pain"
Crain had just graduated from high school in her hometown of Vidor, Texas, in May of 2023 when she learned that she was pregnant.
Fails says that Crain, shown here as a child with her mother, was "the gravity" in her life. "She would put her arms around me like she was the adult and I was the kid and tell me I was strong." Credit:
She and her boyfriend of two years, Randall Broussard, were always hip to hip, wrestling over vapes or snuggling on the couch watching vampire movies. Crain was drawn to how gentle he was. He admired how easily she built friendships and how quickly she could make people laugh. Though they were young, they'd already imagined starting a family. Broussard, who has eight siblings, wanted many kids; Crain wanted a daughter and the kind of relationship she had with her mom. Earlier that year, Broussard had given Crain a small diamond ring — "a promise," he told her, "that I will always love you."
On the morning of their baby shower, Oct. 28, 2023, Crain woke with a headache. Her mom decorated the house with pink balloons and Crain laid out Halloween-themed platters. Soon, nausea set in. Crain started vomiting and was running a fever. When guests arrived, Broussard opened gifts — onesies and diapers and bows — while Crain kept closing her eyes.
Around 3 p.m., her family told her she needed to go to the hospital.
Broussard drove Crain to Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas. They sat in the waiting room for four hours. When Crain started vomiting, staff brought her a plastic pan. When she wasn't retching, she lay her head in her boyfriend's lap.
A nurse practitioner ordered a test for strep throat, which came back positive, medical records show. But in a pregnant patient, abdominal pain and vomiting should not be quickly attributed to strep, physicians told ProPublica; a doctor should have also evaluated her pregnancy.
Instead, Baptist Hospitals discharged her with a prescription for antibiotics. She was home at 9 p.m. and quickly dozed off, but within hours, she woke her mother up. "Mom, my stomach is still hurting," she said into the dark bedroom at 3 a.m. "I'm in a lot of pain."
Fails drove Broussard and Crain to another hospital in town, Christus Southeast Texas St. Elizabeth. Around 4:20 a.m., OB-GYN William Hawkins saw that Crain had a temperature of 102.8 and an abnormally high pulse, according to records; a nurse noted that Crain rated her abdominal pain as a seven out of 10.
Her vital signs pointed to possible sepsis, records show. It's standard medical practice to immediately treat patients who show signs of sepsis, which can overtake and kill a person quickly, medical experts told ProPublica. These patients should be watched until their vitals improve. Through tests and scans, the goal is to find the source of the infection. If the infection was in Crain's uterus, the fetus would likely need to be removed with a surgery.
In a room at the obstetric emergency department, a nurse wrapped a sensor belt around Crain's belly to check the fetal heart rate. "Baby's fine," Broussard told Fails, who was sitting in the hallway.
After two hours of IV fluids, one dose of antibiotics, and some Tylenol, Crain's fever didn't go down, her pulse remained high, and the fetal heart rate was abnormally fast, medical records show. Hawkins noted that Crain had strep and a urinary tract infection, wrote up a prescription and discharged her.
Hawkins had missed infections before. Eight years earlier, the Texas Medical Board found that he had failed to diagnose appendicitis in one patient and syphilis in another. In the latter case, the board noted that his error "may have contributed to the fetal demise of one of her twins." The board issued an order to have Hawkins' medical practice monitored; the order was lifted two years later. (Hawkins did not respond to several attempts to reach him.)
All of the doctors who reviewed Crain's vital signs for ProPublica said she should have been admitted. "She should have never left, never left," said Elise Boos, an OB-GYN in Tennessee.
Crain's boyfriend, Randall Broussard, and mother at Fails' home in Vidor, Texas Credit:
Kass, the New York emergency physician, put it in starker terms: When they discharged her, they were "pushing her down the path of no return."
"It's bullshit," Fails said as Broussard rolled Crain out in a wheelchair; she was unable to walk on her own. Fails had expected the hospital to keep her overnight. Her daughter was breathing heavily, hunched over in pain, pale in the face. Normally talkative, the teen was quiet.
Back home, around 7 a.m., Fails tried to get her daughter comfortable as she cried and moaned. She told Fails she needed to pee, and her mother helped her into the bathroom. "Mom, come here," she said from the toilet. Blood stained her underwear.
The blood confirmed Fails' instinct: This was a miscarriage.
At 9 a.m, a full day after the nausea began, they were back at Christus St. Elizabeth. Crain's lips were drained of color and she kept saying she was going to pass out. Staff started her on IV antibiotics and performed a bedside ultrasound.
Around 9:30 a.m., the OB on duty, Dr. Marcelo Totorica, couldn't find a fetal heart rate, according to records; he told the family he was sorry for their loss.
Standard protocol when a critically ill patient experiences a miscarriage is to stabilize her and, in most cases, hurry to the operating room for delivery, medical experts said. This is especially urgent with a spreading infection. But at Christus St. Elizabeth, the OB-GYN just continued antibiotic care. A half-hour later, as nurses placed a catheter, Fails noticed her daughter's thighs were covered in blood.
At 10 a.m., Melissa McIntosh, a labor and delivery nurse, spoke to Totorica about Crain's condition. The teen was now having contractions. "Dr. Totorica states to not move patient," she wrote after talking with him. "Dr. Totorica states there is a slight chance patient may need to go to ICU and he wants the bedside ultrasound to be done stat for sure before admitting to room."
Though he had already performed an ultrasound, he was asking for a second.
The first hadn't preserved an image of Crain's womb in the medical record. "Bedside ultrasounds aren't always set up to save images permanently," said Abbott, the Boston OB-GYN.
The state's laws banning abortion require that doctors record the absence of a fetal heartbeat before intervening with a procedure that could end a pregnancy. Exceptions for medical emergencies demand physicians document their reasoning. "Pretty consistently, people say, 'Until we can be absolutely certain this isn't a normal pregnancy, we can't do anything, because it could be alleged that we were doing an abortion,'" said Dr. Tony Ogburn, an OB-GYN in San Antonio.
At 10:40 a.m, Crain's blood pressure was dropping. Minutes later, Totorica was paging for an emergency team over the loudspeakers.
Around 11 a.m., two hours after Crain had arrived at the hospital, a second ultrasound was performed. A nurse noted: "Bedside ultrasound at this time to confirm fetal demise per Dr. Totorica's orders."
When doctors wheeled Crain into the ICU at 11:20 a.m., Fails stayed by her side, rubbing her head, as her daughter dipped in and out of consciousness. Crain couldn't sign consent forms for her care because of "extreme pain," according to the records, so Fails signed a release for "unplanned dilation and curettage" or "unplanned cesarean section."
But the doctors quickly decided it was now too risky to operate, according to records. They suspected that she had developed a dangerous complication of sepsis known as disseminated intravascular coagulation; she was bleeding internally.
Frantic and crying, Fails locked eyes with her daughter. "You're strong, Nevaeh," she said. "God made us strong."
Crain sat up in the cot. Old, black blood gushed from her nostrils and mouth.
Fails visits the grave of her daughter and granddaughter, Lillian Faye Broussard, in Buna, Texas. Credit:
"The Law Is on Our Side"
Crain is one of at least two pregnant Texas women who died after doctors delayed treating miscarriages, ProPublica found.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has successfully made his state the only one in the country that isn't required to follow the Biden administration's efforts to ensure that emergency departments don't turn away patients like Crain.
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, the administration issued guidance on how states with bans should follow the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. The federal law requires hospitals that receive funding through Medicare — which is virtually all of them — to stabilize or transfer anyone who arrives in their emergency rooms. That goes for pregnant patients, the guidance argues, even if that means violating state law and providing an abortion.
Paxton responded by filing a lawsuit in 2022, saying the federal guidance "forces hospitals and doctors to commit crimes," and was an "attempt to use federal law to transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic."
Part of the battle has centered on who is eligible for abortion. The federal EMTALA guidelines apply when the health of the pregnant patient is in "serious jeopardy." That's a wider range of circumstances than the Texas abortion restriction, which only makes exceptions for a "risk of death" or "a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function."
The lawsuit worked its way through three layers of federal courts, and each time it was met by judges nominated by former President Donald Trump, whose court appointments were pivotal to overturning Roe v. Wade.
After U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, quickly sided with Texas, Paxton celebrated the triumph over "left-wing bureaucrats in Washington."
"The decision last night proves what we knew all along," Paxton added. "The law is on our side."
This year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld the order in a ruling authored by Kurt D. Engelhardt, another judge nominated by Trump.
The Biden administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the justices to make it clear that some emergency abortions are allowed.
Even amid news of preventable deaths related to abortion bans, the Supreme Court declined to do so last month.
Paxton called this "a major victory" for the state's abortion ban.
He has also made clear that he will bring charges against physicians for performing abortions if he decides that the cases don't fall within Texas' narrow medical exceptions.
Last year, he sent a letter threatening to prosecute a doctor who had received court approval to provide an emergency abortion for a Dallas woman. He insisted that the doctor and her patient had not proven how, precisely, the patient's condition threatened her life.
Many doctors say this kind of message has encouraged doctors to "punt" patients instead of treating them.
Since the abortion bans went into effect, an OB-GYN at a major hospital in San Antonio has seen an uptick in pregnant patients being sent to them from across Southern Texas, as they suffer from complications that could easily be treated close to home.
The well-resourced hospital is perceived to have more institutional support to provide abortions and miscarriage management, the doctor said. Other providers "are transferring those patients to our centers because, frankly, they don't want to deal with them."
After Crain died, Fails couldn't stop thinking about how Christus Southeast Hospital had ignored her daughter's condition. "She was bleeding," she said. "Why didn't they do anything to help it along instead of wait for another ultrasound to confirm the baby is dead?"
It was the medical examiner, not the doctors at the hospital, who removed Lillian from Crain's womb. His autopsy didn't resolve Fails' lingering questions about what the hospitals missed and why. He called the death "natural" and attributed it to "complications of pregnancy." He did note, however, that Crain was "repeatedly seeking medical care for a progressive illness" just before she died.
Last November, Fails reached out to medical malpractice lawyers to see about getting justice through the courts. A different legal barrier now stood in her way.
If Crain had experienced these same delays as an inpatient, Fails would have needed to establish that the hospital violated medical standards. That, she believed, she could do. But because the delays and discharges occurred in an area of the hospital classified as an emergency room, lawyers said that Texas law set a much higher burden of proof: "willful and wanton negligence."
No lawyer has agreed to take the case.
Mariam Elba of Propublica contributed research. Cassandra Jaramillo of Propublica contributed reporting.
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murdered by texas maga legislation.
This is hauntingly familiar.......
it's starting to become much too repetitive in that maga/thumper state ...
This is unacceptable. I'm not a medical professional but it seems to me that when a patient presents with sepsi emergency care is warranted....like pumping the patient full of antibiotics damn the consequences to the fetus. Sounds like this young woman wanted this baby, however, it was not to be. BUT SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO DIE!
Exactly. Vote today, Everybody!
Sometimes, antibiotics just aren't enough. Sometimes, the source of the infection has to be removed surgically to save the patient.
I defer to you. Like I said, I'm not a medical pro. I know just enough to be dangerous
Trump and MAGA cause this suffering and death, and they don’t care. In fact, they’re proud of themselves.
They're quite proud of their ignorance and arrogance/agnorance. They cling to it and thrive on it.
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Bunch of ignorant stupid bitter clingers.
This is now known as "protecting the women, whether they like it or not."
I predict a severe shortage of anti-choice male clergy developing nationwide in the near future ... ... bummer.
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It is mind boggling that in this day and age we have restriction that take the life of a 18 year old pregnant woman.
I doubt if you will see any Texas MAGA politicians comment on this, not because of feeling guilty or embarrassed but it seems to be what they desired.
It is a crying shame before whatever God these people serve! I am fit to be tied. And, I do observe that the usual suspects are silent in the place where their voices could/should be the 'loudest' against death and destruction of girls and women. Every last person on this planet. . . that has ever been on this planet. . .is due to the 'blessing' from a girl or woman. We fail them when we see them in their most VULNERABLE moment. . . left to die alone while HELP looks on mercilessly!
This is beyond outrage! The time has come to ACT! And, damn it, red-state republican girls and women need to stop being so damn clueless about what is and about to happen to them!
Thank you Sandy. I tried to find the name of the other Texas woman who died first, to 'Say her name' in another article but read that she had not been publicly identified. You found her name. Now, I will say it: Nevaeh Crain
A 'precious' 18 years old. Clearly she wanted to have a child, but why does doing so have to become a 'death sentence'?
I got a chill thinking about this. Lives lost. This is way too serious for 'anybody' to be treating it lightly.
Where do some conservatives GET OFF trivializing girls and women who die? This is a crime 'excused.' This is WRONG!
We are all - Navaeh Crain now.
This is serious! Should a girl or woman who gets pregnant. . . have fear and loathing over the moment in her life when she is 'expectant' of joy to come? The time has come! These deaths of girls and women is an utter and complete outrage! It is a shame before God! And, it is time for the church to speak up (and vote) for righteous treatment of girls and women. . . and let ignorant men who are committing legalized 'murder' in hospital-settings be damned!
This is a terrible story and I'm afraid it won't be the last time a tragedy like this occurs because of the trump abortion bans.
There was an increase in maternal and fetal mortality and morbidity after the ban in Texas.
Guess you have all the facts that prove this was the result of TRUMP ABORTION BANS - 'specifically since he's not in office nor is he in Texas - sho where did "his authority" come from?
You and Trump can't have it both ways, 1st. He doesn't get credit for overturning Roe, and simultaneously get to dodge the consequences of that court decision. And this is one of the consequences. An 18-year-old woman is dead because she couldn't get medical help soon enough during a miscarriage.
It's a tragedy that happened and it should not have happened.
But I would love to hear the rest of the story. There's nothing from the doctors or the hospitals in question. It seems very clear that there were major failures from all doctors involved. Why is the question that really needs to be answered here. Why did the first ER visit only diagnose strep throat and send her home. Why did the second doctor miss such obvious signs of infection and fail to properly treat the sepsis. As I said, major failures and this story is only telling one side as the doctors and hospitals have not responded. I'm sure their lawyers have told them to keep quiet but an investigation needs to happen and if licenses need to be pulled let it happen.
We had this argument in another thread about abortion and states rights. I really don't want to rehash it.
Suffice it to say that these are the types of politicians who the people of the state elected. If the laws passed by these people are not in keeping with the majority of the voters of the state then these people will be replaced.
But I stand by what I said above. I would love to know the rest of the story as there is definitely more to this story.
If you don't want to rehash it, stay off my seed
This is state-sanctioned murder in the name of the religious right imposing their views on women like Neveah.
And because you like to pin responsibility on doctors and hospital lawyers, I will repeat:
Even when doctors receive court permission to save a woman's life, Ken Paxton threatens them with prosecution, because that's the Christian thing to do, apparently, and he absolutely does impose his religious dogma on women, to the point of death, if he so chooses.
In furtherance of: If the point of the story is to safe the life of the fetus/baby until it is born then the state failed in its inaction to save the 'mother' who was its 'housing' and 'caretaker.' This 'case' is ideology run amok. It is heartless. 'Clinically' dispassionate.
An eighteen years old 'newly-minted' woman with a full life before her, did NOT HAVE bring life into the world (as the STRICT PARENT STATE DEMANDED) and that state lacked NURTURING PARENT understanding to realize that. . . one child lost to the mother kept well and healthy could provide a 'better' outcome on the next pregnancy.
Texas' abortion ban is an ideological sham and weaponized death 'device'!
The state as 'parent' model of governance can not license legalized neglect that ends in death of citizens of America, which we all are. That is, the citizens of Texas do not belong to the politicians of Texas-because Texas has a 'parent' government which is over it. Therefore, Texas law should be investigated for error in judgement and corrected. This death identifies Texas as a 'bad parent' which actively 'establishes' harmful ideology and uses it to 'pursue' this nation's females who 'dare' to get pregnant within its borders when they at their most vulnerable. That is, there is no proper posture for the state to stand by, when two of its residents die - a prospective mother and her child (without any due process) simply because a law says she must carry a miscarriage to 'term.'
The state abortion band is morally wrong. And with regards to the state acting as 'near-parent' (modeling) it has performed badly!
The ideology being forced on these women is killing not only the women, but also their fetuses. Doctors are so scared at the prospect of possibly needing to provide an emergency abortion that they are afraid to treat pregnancy complications, even when there is a chance of a good outcome, so they kick the can down the road, ensuring a bad outcome.
Got it, I'll stay off your seeds. Different opinions and viewpoints are not wanted.
thats not what i read, butt hurt and take your ball and go home, its an eemoji en c
You can express your viewpoint. I can disagree with it vigorously. You can either deal with that, or not.
But you don't get to come to my seed and decide what can be discussed.
Yeah, always the victim.
Some attempt to trivialize the potential for damages done to a career (a profession, a way of life) when politicians use their power to craft policies which expressly isolate, intimidate, and promise harm to others. Such politicians cause systems to collapse when they introduce ambiguity into public policy and leave it there to do its insidious 'work.' These girls and women, both, are fall out (collateral damages).
And the "system" in Texas is at risk of collapse. Doctors who treat women are less likely to practice there. Some have already moved. Graduating med students don't want to do their residencies there. This has the potential to limit access to obstetric and gynelogical care for ALL women in Texas, not just those who want or need an abortion. Women in general will be the collateral damage of this misguided imposition of ideology. As will their families - husbands left without wives, children without mothers, parents without daughters.
And these professionals should vote with their feet! Either vote out the self-claimed "pro-life' ideologues (to but it mildly) or take their hard-earned professional 'tools' of caring and life-saving where it can and will be appreciated. Texas is a horrible place and to girls and women there going forward 'every' pregnancy is suspect. As humans, as girls and women, that is no way to live!
Rules should be made for people, not people made to fit (dangerous) rules.
Huge difference between Houston and Big Spring. Beware of reducing a huge, diverse state to a simple generality.
Many feel an obligation to their patients. They went into medicine to do good, and feel compelled to do so, even under poor conditions.
Above is the complete statement and importantly context for my statement and it is further clarified by its surrounding comments with Sandy. If some people have nothing useful to add. . . just don't add anything at all!
It appears to me that Texas has taken a position - love it or leave it. Which implies they expect some distillation downward (making openings for other like-minded professionals to take the place of people leaving). In that sense, it could become a state for old men and women—will plenty of good 'room' all around.
No, you started the sentence with a declaration and then added “and” making a separate statement.
I didn’t reply to Sandy.
I agree with that.
Thank you.
The 'pro-life' party
Right?
This young woman died in pain and misery. Nothing about that is pro-life.
... or anywhere near being christian.
I just sit here thinking (with all my recent medical issues in tow) of the betrayal, the confusion, the questions this young woman must have felt as laid around and when back and forth to the hospital, because she did nothing wrong. She has been unjustly taken from us.
”... or anywhere near being christian.”
The most confusing aspect of this election cycle.
How can any practicing ‘christian’ so readily dismiss the notion that their candidate holds any of their supposed ideals?
Perhaps it as simply unbelievable as any tenet they believe.
That being said, they have every right to believe as they choose, but don’t for a second delude yourself into thinking your beliefs should ever influence or define how our democracy operates.
their religious ideals only function from 7 to 11 on sunday mornings, including travel time ...
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Not how some folks see it. She had sex while not married, as a woman. That warrants the death penalty in some minds.
Which brings 'us' to the next level of this discussion, Crooked Donald, the leader of trumpism, wants to be a 'protector of women,' it begs the question. . . as girls and women can die from this form of 'protection.'
Crooked Donald, wants (us) to imagine he is acting in his role as the Parent-Father / Strict Father model of government leadership should he return to the White House. In doing this, his past activities on bringing into reality abortion ban(s) currently taking hold in the country. . . is a 'total and complete' failure as there is a gaping hole in the former president's "parenting" to wit: The metaphor allows for the ("Parent') state-sanctioned wronging and even killing in what promises to be ever-increasing numbers of its own 'daughters-grandsons- granddaughters' in childbirth.
What?! She had sex and it was not for procreation? That's wrong.
I don’t know anyone that thinks that.
Well, it might have been for procreation, but it wasn't blessed by a preacher.
Which is kinda icky, anyway.
A single mother? Even worse.
Gotta remember - this is TRUMP's fault.
Unfortunately in this partisan environment, it's so easy to blame the other guy.
It is, glad you remember.
It is Trump's fault. It is the SCOTUS' fault. It is the GOP of Texas' fault. It is the fault of all those individuals living within Texas' border who will continue to die due to mis-directed fealty to an ideology of life - that can take the lives of girls and women unjustly and without any interest in compassion. Texas' law is repeatedly being put on display as morally wrong. Pregnancy should not give women 'fear and loathing' of what can happen when medical science stands by/down and will not life its powerful 'hand' to apply a fix to a sick and suffering pregnant girl or woman.
Well everything is his fault, so.
I guess her family won't be able to sue the SCotUS but they should at least take a shot at the Texas government. I have no doubt they could raise the funding to bring such a claim.
I imagine the government has sovereign immunity, but I could be wrong. I hope I am.
This is what happens under the ‘states rights’ agenda.
Under a trump presidency, in lieu of caring for all of us collectively by being brave enough to stand up for personal freedom, we acquiesce to each individual state to pose their will.
It's the hodge-podge system of 'yesteryears' returning with its vengeance. It exposes the biggest flaw in our two-tier system of governance. . . the imperfection of federalism when its 'participant' systems, plural, choose to challenge or not cooperate at all with each other. Our nation came up with these inherent travesties and we were FINALLY doing something to make life better for all. But, some conservatives want to COMPETE nonstop against their fellow inheritors of the nation's rights, privileges, and bounty.
We have a three tier construct:
tonight/tomorrow is when we find out if over half the US population is entitled to equal rights ...