I read your Commonplace essay. As a retired Emergency Physician, I had followed several of the case described and I was surprised by how badly these episodes were managed to include the totally ludicrous excuses made… But I am now horrified to learn that these cases were so much worse. And to be clear - you are entirely correct in your assessment of the medical malpractice that resulted in these tragic deaths. Understanding relevant state medical practice laws and standards is a duty of every physician. Medical malpractice litigation certainly seems justified in these cases…!
Thanks so much for drawing more (and well described) attention to these horrific (and entirely avoidable) tragedies…!
I loved this piece Leah! I really hope there is common ground with pro choicers here but I’ve been disappointed by what I’ve seen in these scenarios. Often as in Glick’s case when it becomes clear that this was not a patient who desired an abortion it becomes an inconvenient fact for a narrative invested in conveying that an abortion was what needed to save her life. This likely comes from an unfortunately all too common bias for someone in Glick’s position with a high risk pregnancy who faces a multiplicity of other marginalizations to be considered irresponsible for not desiring an abortion. I think this bias also makes it difficult to envision the kind of care you rightly advocate for that would allow for full time monitoring or others which could be seen as a waste of resources.
On the flip side this zero sum mindset on abortion is so embedded within medicine that it bleeds into everything and it can cause pro life hospitals or providers to be cautious to the point of negligence as in clear cut cases where the baby has already died for fear of being associated with anything even resembling abortion care. I was once a part of an initiative to get more MVAs in Emergency departments where they would be used for miscarriage management and would never be used for an elective abortion but this was sabotaged (they were mysteriously thrown away) as the mere presence of the MVAs was troubling to some pro life staff.
Yes, and I think that's a big problem when people say things like "there's no such thing as a life-saving abortion" and mean "you can do previable maternal fetal separation in a medical crisis without directly intending the death of the baby."
I do think it makes a difference for the doctor be intervening, thinking about *two* patients, but only able to save one, versus framing one person as a *problem* for the other. But you got to be honest about the procedure being substantially similar.
I love this piece thank you for sharing. On the pro-choice side difficulties ensue when the default mindset is that "every abortion is a life saving one" as it seeks to render contextual distinctions irrelevant. This is the unfortunate conclusion that flows downstream og the logic that only a pregnancy progressing in accordance with a mother's volition can be just. I think reintroducing a framework where medical treatment of a pregnancy accounts for two patients is crucial for pro-life advocates within medicine.
I largely agree with what you say here. I am thinking, though, about ER doctors. I think ER doctors *ought* to do their best, and *ought* to try to save lives and repair bodies, etc., and there ought to be legal consequences for malpractice. But we should also understand that even the best ones are doing their best in complicated, urgent situations and probably without all the information they need. It seems to make sense to give ER doctors more leeway to "get it wrong" because they often aren't in a position to build a relationship with the patient, gather their entire medical history, fully understand the situation that brought them to the ER, etc. Sometimes you just have to Act Now and hope your rapid assessment of the incomplete information is a good one. I'm not a doctor or a lawyer so I don't know how this should all shake out legally but I think it's an important consideration.
Yes, it's a difficult balance, because you don't want to discourage doctors from serving the most fragile patients and worrying about their cure rate. But I think that we want to shift toward the accountability end of the spectrum relative to where we are now.
Yeah -- ok, I just read your full piece and as Martha says below, it is pretty clear that the doctors were being negligent in these cases. This reminds me of the movie Sully, where after the pilot manages the plane crash he has to see a review board of... other pilots. (It's been a few years; forgive me if I'm mistaken.) I can imagine a review board like this... if your patient dies, a review board of doctors or other medical professionals reviews the case and decides (or has serious input into the decision) whether you were at fault. Problems I see here are (a) it might be an overwhelming number of reviews for ER doctors, and (b) this might motivate negligent providers to fudge paperwork, and (c) there'd be a lot of he-said-she-said regarding whether the doctor told the patient this or that (and if the patient has died, there wouldn't be a way to get her story anyway).
Anyway, I obviously don't have solutions, but I do agree that it's worth consideration by the relevant professionals who know the field.
I think that’s the thing—so much of the time they were *not* acting, in an extremely obvious and (at least according to many reports, and to the ER doctor below) negligent way
Thank you for raising an insightful point about medical deserts wrt abortion issue. And the fact about the quality of medical care available. We all are under the impression that anyone with an MD is qualified but apparently that's not always the case.
I'm getting errors that prevent navigating to both https://commonplace.org/ and your piece featured on it.
The error for your piece is nonspecific, but the error for https://commonplace.org/ is "Error code: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG". Maybe it's just me, but that I got errors on both my devices and through two different browsers (Chrome and Firefox) suggests it's not a device-specific problem (even if it's somehow a person-specific one – a little sad cloud of technological dysfunction does seem to follow me around sometimes).
Leah
I read your Commonplace essay. As a retired Emergency Physician, I had followed several of the case described and I was surprised by how badly these episodes were managed to include the totally ludicrous excuses made… But I am now horrified to learn that these cases were so much worse. And to be clear - you are entirely correct in your assessment of the medical malpractice that resulted in these tragic deaths. Understanding relevant state medical practice laws and standards is a duty of every physician. Medical malpractice litigation certainly seems justified in these cases…!
Thanks so much for drawing more (and well described) attention to these horrific (and entirely avoidable) tragedies…!
Thank you, I really appreciate hearing that given your on the ground perspective.
I loved this piece Leah! I really hope there is common ground with pro choicers here but I’ve been disappointed by what I’ve seen in these scenarios. Often as in Glick’s case when it becomes clear that this was not a patient who desired an abortion it becomes an inconvenient fact for a narrative invested in conveying that an abortion was what needed to save her life. This likely comes from an unfortunately all too common bias for someone in Glick’s position with a high risk pregnancy who faces a multiplicity of other marginalizations to be considered irresponsible for not desiring an abortion. I think this bias also makes it difficult to envision the kind of care you rightly advocate for that would allow for full time monitoring or others which could be seen as a waste of resources.
On the flip side this zero sum mindset on abortion is so embedded within medicine that it bleeds into everything and it can cause pro life hospitals or providers to be cautious to the point of negligence as in clear cut cases where the baby has already died for fear of being associated with anything even resembling abortion care. I was once a part of an initiative to get more MVAs in Emergency departments where they would be used for miscarriage management and would never be used for an elective abortion but this was sabotaged (they were mysteriously thrown away) as the mere presence of the MVAs was troubling to some pro life staff.
Yes, and I think that's a big problem when people say things like "there's no such thing as a life-saving abortion" and mean "you can do previable maternal fetal separation in a medical crisis without directly intending the death of the baby."
I do think it makes a difference for the doctor be intervening, thinking about *two* patients, but only able to save one, versus framing one person as a *problem* for the other. But you got to be honest about the procedure being substantially similar.
I thought Matthew Loftus's piece here was very good: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/opinion/abortion-doctor-pro-life.html
I love this piece thank you for sharing. On the pro-choice side difficulties ensue when the default mindset is that "every abortion is a life saving one" as it seeks to render contextual distinctions irrelevant. This is the unfortunate conclusion that flows downstream og the logic that only a pregnancy progressing in accordance with a mother's volition can be just. I think reintroducing a framework where medical treatment of a pregnancy accounts for two patients is crucial for pro-life advocates within medicine.
I largely agree with what you say here. I am thinking, though, about ER doctors. I think ER doctors *ought* to do their best, and *ought* to try to save lives and repair bodies, etc., and there ought to be legal consequences for malpractice. But we should also understand that even the best ones are doing their best in complicated, urgent situations and probably without all the information they need. It seems to make sense to give ER doctors more leeway to "get it wrong" because they often aren't in a position to build a relationship with the patient, gather their entire medical history, fully understand the situation that brought them to the ER, etc. Sometimes you just have to Act Now and hope your rapid assessment of the incomplete information is a good one. I'm not a doctor or a lawyer so I don't know how this should all shake out legally but I think it's an important consideration.
Yes, it's a difficult balance, because you don't want to discourage doctors from serving the most fragile patients and worrying about their cure rate. But I think that we want to shift toward the accountability end of the spectrum relative to where we are now.
Yeah -- ok, I just read your full piece and as Martha says below, it is pretty clear that the doctors were being negligent in these cases. This reminds me of the movie Sully, where after the pilot manages the plane crash he has to see a review board of... other pilots. (It's been a few years; forgive me if I'm mistaken.) I can imagine a review board like this... if your patient dies, a review board of doctors or other medical professionals reviews the case and decides (or has serious input into the decision) whether you were at fault. Problems I see here are (a) it might be an overwhelming number of reviews for ER doctors, and (b) this might motivate negligent providers to fudge paperwork, and (c) there'd be a lot of he-said-she-said regarding whether the doctor told the patient this or that (and if the patient has died, there wouldn't be a way to get her story anyway).
Anyway, I obviously don't have solutions, but I do agree that it's worth consideration by the relevant professionals who know the field.
I think that’s the thing—so much of the time they were *not* acting, in an extremely obvious and (at least according to many reports, and to the ER doctor below) negligent way
Is the podcast up yet? I can't find it.
Here it is: https://commonplace.org/2025/01/31/the-truth-about-pro-life-laws-with-leah-sargeant/
Thanks!
Thank you for raising an insightful point about medical deserts wrt abortion issue. And the fact about the quality of medical care available. We all are under the impression that anyone with an MD is qualified but apparently that's not always the case.
I'm getting errors that prevent navigating to both https://commonplace.org/ and your piece featured on it.
The error for your piece is nonspecific, but the error for https://commonplace.org/ is "Error code: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG". Maybe it's just me, but that I got errors on both my devices and through two different browsers (Chrome and Firefox) suggests it's not a device-specific problem (even if it's somehow a person-specific one – a little sad cloud of technological dysfunction does seem to follow me around sometimes).
You're the second person to tell me that, but I can't reproduce the errors!