Ahead of America’s election night, when pro-abortion measures were defeated in three states but passed in seven others, a pair of concerning headlines added more fuel to the red-hot abortion debate.

“She said she had a miscarriage — then got arrested under an abortion law,” reads one. Another announces: “A Woman Died After Being Told It Would Be a ‘Crime’ to Intervene in Her Miscarriage at a Texas Hospital.” 

As the Register reported on Oct. 21, media coverage and pro-abortion campaign ads in recent months have fed a misleading narrative that pro-life laws in states like Georgia and Texas prohibit doctors from providing medical care to women experiencing a miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy or other pregnancy-related emergency.

Yet new reports of additional cases that purportedly support these claims keep popping up — most recently in a nearly 6,000-word article in the The Washington Post, detailing the story of a Nevada woman charged with manslaughter, and another report on a Texas case published by ProPublica.

Is there some validity to these reports, or are they being used to present an incomplete picture of what is going on? The Register recently spoke with two medical doctors to better understand the broader context of these new cases. 

 

Charged Under 1911 Law

The Nevada case concerns a then-26-year-old woman named Patience Frazier who was charged with manslaughter in 2018 after she admitted to taking substances to end her pregnancy after the state’s 24-week abortion limit. Authorities found the remains of her infant son, who she named Abel, buried on her property.

Frazier did not want to carry her pregnancy to term, but she didn’t seek an abortion, she said, because she didn’t have a car and couldn’t get to a clinic.

Instead, she admitted to trying to cause the death of her child by taking a large quantity of cinnamon because she heard that could cause an abortion, although research does not substantiate that. A toxicology lab found remnants of both marijuana and methamphetamine in Abel’s remains, The Washington Post reported.

Frazier reported feeling heaving cramping and said the baby came out not breathing. She said she cradled him and cried, then buried him. The babysitter had reported that Frazier’s belly went from very pregnant to flat — suspecting she had done something to end the pregnancy. She showed a screenshot of Frazier’s Facebook post apologizing to her son. “I’ve been holding it in in hiding it, but I can’t anymore,” Frazier had written. “I’m so sorry Abel. I’m sorry I’m a horrible person.”

The search warrant cited “suspicious circumstances related to a possible unreported birth, death, and clandestine burial of an infant.” 

Nevada’s abortion law at the time, which was adopted while Roe v. Wade was still in effect and remains on the books today, allows abortion up to 24 weeks, around the point when an unborn baby could potentially survive outside the womb with immediate medical care. 

Although the state’s abortion law doesn’t allow women who seek abortions after 24 weeks to be prosecuted, authorities charged Frazier under a 1911 state law that prohibits “taking any drug, medicine or substance, or any instrument or other means” to have an abortion after 24 weeks, which can result in a manslaughter charge punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Her own mother testified in court that she was taking drugs and other toxic substances, trying to end the pregnancy, although Frazier denied that.

Frazier was initially found guilty of manslaughter, but two years into a 30-month-to-eight-year sentence, the verdict was overturned. She was freed, although the case is still open. Frazier has since moved to South Dakota and given birth to another son, despite friends encouraging her to have an abortion.

The Washington Post article tells of Frazier’s tragic life of abuse, beginning as a young child up until her arrest, living with a man 20 years her senior with a drug habit, whom she feared would kick her out due to the pregnancy. 

Dr. Ingrid Skop, vice president and director of medical affairs for the Lozier Institute, who has 30 years’ experience as a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist in San Antonio, Texas, said Frazier’s story is a heartbreaking one of abuse by men, abuse to herself and then abuse to her baby that facilitated his death.

“We do say it’s not appropriate to injure a baby’s life outside the womb, yet we allow ending the life of a baby at the same age in utero,” she said of abortion laws. “It’s tragic that she was unaware that there were pregnancy centers that would have accompanied her and helped her and so many couples that would have loved to adopt her baby. Most adoptions are open these days. She could have had a relationship with her child. There are so many other ways it could have been resolved.” 

Skop pointed to an inadequate response to crises pregnancies where only abortion is pushed. “An abortion doesn’t solve her homelessness or help her with the children she already has,” she said. “It doesn’t help her with anything; it just ends the life of her baby. I’m hopeful we can start doing the hard work to provide real help to women.”

Skop noted that, in her state of Texas, $70 million has been allotted towards organizations supporting women, working to address the problems that drive them to end the lives of their unborn children. 

Skop also emphasized that Frazier’s son was at an advanced stage of gestational development.

“The baby found buried in her yard was between 28 and 32 weeks,” she said. “That’s not a miscarriage. At that age, a baby has a chance of survival.” 

 

Questioning a Hospital’s Care

ProPublica’s story makes the case that the Texas Heartbeat Act, a 2021 law that bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and allows private citizens to sue anyone who performs or assists an illegal abortion, is to blame for the death of 28-year-old Josseli Barnica, who died from an infection after she went to a Texas hospital seeking emergency medical care during a miscarriage. Doctors delayed treating her because they said the state’s abortion law prohibited them from acting until the unborn baby’s heartbeat stopped, according to the report.

Barnica very much wanted her second child, but a miscarriage at 17 weeks was in progress when she arrived at the hospital on Sept. 3, 2021. At the time, the Supreme Court had not yet overturned Roe v. Wade. The Texas abortion ban had just gone into effect, which required physicians to confirm the absence of a fetal heartbeat before intervening unless there was a “medical emergency.” This past September, after being directed to do so by the state Supreme Court, the Texas Medical Board released guidance telling doctors that an emergency didn’t need to be “imminent” in order to warrant intervention. 

In Barnica’s case, an ultrasound confirmed the baby’s head was in the open cervix and she had low amniotic fluid. For 40 hours, her uterus remained exposed to bacteria. Three days after Barnica delivered, she died of an infection.

Dr. Kathleen Raviele, an obstetrician-gynecologist with 44 years of practice in the Atlanta area and past president of the Catholic Medical Association, told the Register she agrees with the more than a dozen medical experts consulted by ProPublica that the course of treatment under such circumstances should be to speed up delivery or empty the uterus to prevent infection. Texas’ law does not prevent that treatment, she said. 

“The woman had an incompetent cervix,” Raviele explained. “Any loss of pregnancy before 20 weeks is considered a miscarriage. It was poor obstetrical care that caused that woman’s death. If someone is at risk of an infection, you should monitor her labs and do cultures.”

What happened instead is that after Barnica delivered the baby on Sept. 5, eight hours later, she was sent home with heavy bleeding but told that was to be expected. On the evening of Sept. 7, Barnica’s husband rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late — she died of sepsis, a serious immune response to infection. 

“She had poor treatment,” Raviele emphasized. “In such circumstances, she should have been started on Pitocin and her membranes ruptured to induce labor.” In some cases of an incompetent cervix, Raviele said that bedrest and possibly putting in a suture to close the cervix can help a woman continue her pregnancy. “But if she came in with a cervix dilated to 5 or 6 cm, it would have been inevitable that she was going to lose the baby,” the doctor said. According to the ProPublica story, Barnica was dilated to 8.9 cm.

“You can induce labor to treat the woman if there is no adequate treatment to keep both the mother and baby alive,” Raviele explained. 

The doctors involved in Barnica’s care at HCA Houston Healthcare Northwest did not respond to multiple requests for comment from ProPublica on her case. In a statement to the news outlet, HCA Healthcare said “our responsibility is to be in compliance with applicable state and federal laws and regulations” and said that physicians exercise their independent judgment.

 

Fueling Fears 

Both Raviele and Skop told the Register they believe the cases of these two women are being distorted to feed a fearmongering narrative that has been heavily promoted in the media since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

“The media began telling outright lies,” Skop said. “The law states that doctors are given reasonable judgment, and every state can perform an abortion to protect the life of a mother. But pro-abortion activists are saying now doctors don’t know how to treat pregnant women.”

As she explained, “When the water bag breaks, every doctor knows the danger of infection is high if she stays pregnant and likelihood of that baby surviving is low. They can immediately induce labor, and the baby will die before viability. It will end the pregnancy but still show respect for the baby. But they still have the option of D&E [dilation & evacuation]. Some women want to take the chance for survival. If it’s near 22 weeks, maybe the baby has a chance.” 

Reasonable options are supported by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Skop said, but it seems that professional societies wanting the laws to fail, hoping the public will turn against the laws, have remained silent rather than inform properly and even stir up confusion.  

“Many of the articles we are now reading of women who have died because they were not treated are from the same people and organizations blaming the laws,” Skop said. “But it was not the laws. No doctor who performed an abortion to save the life of a mother has been charged with anything. But apparently some women are dying because of this deception in our country. I’m amazed that any of my peers have not been educated on this topic.”

When a new law impacts the practice of medicine, Skop explained that professional medical societies have in the past reached out to make sure doctors understood the law, such as with HIPAA and regarding prescribing opiates. “No doctor wants to take the chance of losing their license or end up with a felony,” she said. “It’s understandable why they would be concerned, but our professional societies did not explain the law.” Skop referred to the Human Life Protection Act, which the Texas Supreme Court unanimously upheld this past May 31, allowing a physician to perform an abortion when he or she exercises reasonable medical judgment, when the pregnant woman has a life-threatening physical condition or there is a risk of death or serious physical impairment unless an abortion is performed.  

Skop explained, “The Supreme Court stated that eminency or certainty was not required to treat a woman, so doctors do not have to delay treatment until a woman is sick and dying.”