At least two pregnant Texas women, including Josseli Barnica, perished as a result of doctors delaying emergency assistance. She had informed her husband that the medical staff had advised waiting for the baby heartbeat to stop before taking any action.
On September 3, 2021, Josseli Barnica lay in a hospital bed in Houston, devastated to learn that the sibling she had hoped to have with her daughter would not live through this pregnancy.
With its head pressed against her dilated cervix, the fetus was about to emerge; doctors recorded in hospital records that she was 17 weeks pregnant and that a miscarriage was “in progress.” According to over a dozen medical experts, they ought to have offered to expedite the delivery or empty her uterus at that time in order to prevent a fatal infection.
Barnica, however, told ProPublica in Spanish that the medical team had told her, “They had to wait until there was no heartbeat,” when he hurried to her side from his work on a construction site. “To perform an abortion on her would be illegal.”
The distraught 28-year-old mother prayed for physicians to help her bring her daughter home for 40 hours, during which time her uterus continued to be exposed to infection.
Barnica passed away from an infection three days after giving birth.