Texas hospital that discharged woman with doomed pregnancy violated the
law, a federal inquiry finds
[June 05, 2025]
By AMANDA SEITZ
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Texas hospital that repeatedly sent a woman who was
bleeding and in pain home without ending her nonviable, life-threatening
pregnancy violated the law, according to a newly released federal
investigation.
The government's findings, which have not been previously reported, were
a small victory for 36-year-old Kyleigh Thurman, who ultimately lost
part of her reproductive system after being discharged without any help
from her hometown emergency room for her dangerous ectopic pregnancy.
But a new policy the Trump administration announced on Tuesday has
thrown into doubt the federal government's oversight of hospitals that
deny women emergency abortions, even when they are at risk for serious
infection, organ loss or severe hemorrhaging.
Thurman had hoped the federal government's investigation, which issued a
report in April after concluding its inquiry last year, would send a
clear message that ectopic pregnancies must be treated by hospitals in
Texas, which has one of the nation's strictest abortion bans.
“I didn’t want anyone else to have to go through this,” Thurman said in
an interview with the Associated Press from her Texas home this week. “I
put a lot of the responsibility on the state of Texas and policy makers
and the legislators that set this chain of events off.”
Uncertainty regarding emergency abortion access
Women around the country have been denied emergency abortions for their
life-threatening pregnancies after states swiftly enacted abortion
restrictions in response to a 2022 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court,
which includes three appointees of President Donald Trump.
The guidance issued by the Biden administration in 2022 was an effort to
preserve access to emergency abortions for extreme cases in which women
were experiencing medical emergencies. It directed hospitals — even ones
in states with severe restrictions — to provide abortions in those
emergency cases. If hospitals did not comply, they would be in violation
of a federal law and risk losing some federal funds.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency
responsible for enforcing the law and inspecting hospitals, announced on
Tuesday it would revoke the Biden-era guidance around emergency
abortions. CMS administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said in a social media post
on Wednesday that the revocation of the policy would not prevent
pregnant women from getting treatment in medical emergencies.
“The Biden Administration created confusion, but EMTALA is clear and the
law has not changed: women will receive care for miscarriage, ectopic
pregnancy, and medical emergencies in all fifty states—this has not and
will never change in the Trump Administration,” Oz wrote, using the
acronyms for the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
The law, which remains intact and requires doctors to provide
stabilizing treatment, was one of the few ways that Thurman was able to
hold the emergency room accountable after she didn't receive any help
from staff at Ascension Seton Williamson in Round Rock, Texas in
February of 2023, a few months after Texas enacted its strict abortion
ban.
An ectopic pregnancy left untreated
Emergency room staff observed that Thurman's hormone levels had dropped,
a pregnancy was not visible in her uterus and a structure was blocking
her fallopian tube — all telltale signs of an ectopic pregnancy, when a
fetus implants outside of the uterus and has no room to grow. If left
untreated, ectopic pregnancies can rupture, causing organ damage,
hemorrhage or even death.
Thurman, however, was sent home and given a pamphlet on miscarriage for
her first pregnancy. She returned three days later, still bleeding, and
was given an injected drug intended to end the pregnancy, but it was too
late. Days later, she showed up again at the emergency room, bleeding
out because the fertilized egg growing on Thurman’s fallopian tube
ruptured it. She underwent an emergency surgery that removed part of her
reproductive system.
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Kyleigh Thurman, one of the patients who filed a federal complaint
against an emergency room for not treating her ectopic pregnancy,
talks about her experience at her studio, Aug. 7, 2024, in Burnet
County, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
 CMS launched its investigation of
how Ascension Seton Williamson handled Thurman’s case late last
year, shortly after she filed a complaint. Investigators concluded
the hospital failed to give her a proper medical screening exam,
including an evaluation with an OB-GYN. The hospital violated the
federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires
emergency rooms to provide stabilizing treatment to all patients.
Thurman was “at risk for deterioration of her health and wellbeing
as a result of an untreated medical condition,” the investigation
said in its report, which was publicly released last month.
Ascension, a vast hospital system that has facilities across
multiple states, did not respond to questions about Thurman’s case,
saying only that it is “is committed to providing high-quality care
to all who seek our services.”
Penalties for doctors, hospital staff
Doctors and legal experts have warned abortion restrictions like the
one Texas enacted have discouraged emergency room staff from
aborting dangerous and nonviable pregnancies, even when a woman's
life is imperiled. The stakes are especially high in Texas, where
doctors face up to 99 years in prison if convicted of performing an
illegal abortion. Lawmakers in the state are weighing a law that
would remove criminal penalties for doctors who provide abortions in
certain medical emergencies.
“We see patients with miscarriages being denied care, bleeding out
in parking lots. We see patients with nonviable pregnancies being
told to continue those to term,” said Molly Duane, an attorney at
the Center for Reproductive Rights that represented Thurman. “This
is not, maybe, what some people thought abortion bans would look
like, but this is the reality.”
The Biden administration routinely warned hospitals that they need
to provide abortions when a woman’s health was in jeopardy, even
suing Idaho over its state law that initially prohibited nearly all
abortions, unless a woman’s life was on the line.
Questions remain about hospital investigations
But CMS’ announcement on Tuesday raises questions about whether such
investigations will continue if hospitals do not provide abortions
for women in medical emergencies.
The agency said it will still enforce the law, “including for
identified emergency medical conditions that place the health of a
pregnant woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy.”
While states like Texas have clarified that ectopic pregnancies can
legally be treated with abortions, the laws do not provide for every
complication that might arise during a pregnancy. Several women in
Texas have sued the state for its law, which has prevented women
from terminating pregnancies in cases where their fetuses had deadly
fetal anomalies or they went into labor too early for the fetus to
survive.
Thurman worries pregnant patients with serious complications still
won't be able to get the help they may need in Texas emergency
rooms.
“You cannot predict the ways a pregnancy can go,” Thurman said. “It
can happen to anyone, still. There’s still so many ways in which
pregnancies that aren’t ectopic can be deadly.”
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