“There’s literally nothing they could do”
  May 16, 2023 Hello hello, Meteor readers, Everyone wish a happy birthday to Bobi, the world’s oldest dog. Today he celebrates 217 (dog) years of being a very good boy—or 31 human years, if you don’t feel like doing the math. Today’s newsletter features a story we’ve got to stop becoming familiar with: a Texas woman forced to develop sepsis due to the state’s restrictive abortion ban. Plus, we’ve got Martha Stewart on Sports Illustrated, Planned Parenthood taking a stand, and Naomi Osaka shutting down some bullshit. Let’s get into it, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT’S GOING ON A WOMAN PROTESTS FOR ABORTION ACCESS (PHOTO BY IRFAN KHAN/LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES) “There’s literally nothing they could do”: Once again, Texas’ draconian abortion ban has caused a woman to develop sepsis. Last January, Kristen Anaya, a Texas resident, was elated to hear that her in-vitro fertilization had been a success. But only four months into her pregnancy, her water broke. Anaya rushed to the hospital, but, by the time she’d arrived, had lost nearly all of her amniotic fluid. She began shaking uncontrollably, vomiting, and spiking a fever—all signs of an infection that could lead to sepsis. But the doctors were unable to perform a dilation and curettage to help her; the baby’s heart was still beating. According to Anaya’s medical records, she went on to wait 22 hours before doctors were allowed to induce labor to deliver the unviable fetus. Medical personnel first had to contact the hospital’s termination committee—a team of hospital administrators who must approve any abortion care at the hospital—and build a case for the life-threatening nature of her pregnancy. “I was crying, asking for help,” Anaya told ABC News. “And I remember them literally not saying anything. [The doctors and nurses] would just literally look at me and look at Stephen and they’re just blank. There’s literally nothing they could do.” It’s now been one month since Anaya left the hospital. Since then, she has needed two dilation and curettage procedures to remove the placenta and stop her bleeding. Anaya says she is still experiencing pains and complications, as well as a still-dilated cervix. According to Dr. Aileen Gariepy, an OB/GYN and assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, an early dilation and curettage could have more effectively removed the placenta while in the hospital and prevented further complications. It would be easy to write off these horrific—but increasingly common—scenarios as a Texas thing. That’s where Amanda Zurawski was subjected to similar treatment while losing her pregnancy last summer; she’s now joined four other women in suing the state for the harms caused to them by the state’s abortion bans. But this is now an America thing: A new report from researchers at the University of California San Francisco details dozens more health complications caused by abortion bans across the country—including a patient who was denied an abortion for a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy and another who developed a severe infection after leaving the hospital. “Medicine isn’t black and white,” said Daniel Grossman, the lead author of the report. “It’s not like suddenly you know that a patient is at a very high risk of dying in a certain situation. There’s a lot of gray and that risk will slowly change over time.”  RUDY GIULIANI DURING A REPUBLICAN GET OUT THE VOTE BUS TOUR (PHOTO BY MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES) AND:
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