A Catholic hospital refused critical ectopic pregnancy care. Now the patient is suing.
An Illinois woman says anti-abortion policies delayed treatment, cost her fertility, and nearly cost her life
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Anti-abortion laws are ruining lives, even in blue states that aim to protect women’s rights. And a new lawsuit is a perfect example of that. It involves the traumatic episode experienced by 28-year-old Harmonie Perrone, an Illinois woman who had an ectopic pregnancy (where the fertilized egg implants inside the fallopian tube).
Perrone had been pregnant before—and had suffered ectopic pregnancies before. In fact, the first time that happened, she required surgery and lost her right fallopian tube. The second time it happened, she was treated with methotrexate, which stopped the egg from dividing, effectively inducing an abortion without the need for surgery.
When she became pregnant this time, she knew there was a possibility that something similar could happen, so when symptoms began to appear, she knew exactly what had to happen: She needed the methotrexate and she needed it fast.
Unfortunately, her local hospital, Advocate Good Shepherd, was a Catholic hospital, run under the terms and conditions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. And since anything involving contraception or abortion is forbidden in the faith, treating ectopic pregnancies becomes even more of a hassle. Simply put, Catholic hospitals don’t generally allow abortions unless there’s literally no other option. In this case, the only way they were going to give her the drug was if her fallopian tube was moments away from rupturing (and putting her life in danger).
She didn’t know that.
When she was admitted into the emergency room, she explained her situation and that she needed methotrexate immediately to avoid surgery. After confirming her situation through blood tests and an ultrasound, the ER staff told her they still couldn’t take action. They needed to consult an on-call OB/GYN “specialist.”
As a lawsuit later explained:
An hour later—and four hours into her ER visit at Advocate Good Shepherd—ER staff returned and told Ms. Perrone they had consulted with the on-call OB/GYN who was a “specialist.” They assured Ms. Perrone she would be fine and that she did not need surgery. They told Ms. Perrone they had made an appointment for her to visit the specialist the next day. Ms. Perrone again asked for methotrexate but was told that the emergency room could not prescribe the medication and she would need to talk to the specialist OB/GYN the next day.
When you have an ectopic pregnancy, it needs to be treated immediately. The longer you delay treatment, the riskier everything becomes. But she visited that specialist, Dr. Dympna Coll, the next day. (The lawsuit says there were ads for Botox on the wall, which didn’t exactly scream professional...)
After more tests, and another explanation of her medical history, Coll told Perrone she would still not prescribe methotrexate. The lawsuit then chronicles snippets of what Coll told Perrone:
“We have to weigh the pros and cons of the life of the baby and the life of the mother.”
“There is a 1% chance that there is a baby in there.”
“I cannot in good faith intervene at this time.”
“I will only intervene if your tube is rupturing.”
“You are not going to bully me into giving you methotrexate.”
“We do not do abortions here. You will have to go somewhere else.”
At one point, Coll cited Illinois law, presumably one that says doctors don’t have to perform abortions if they have a personal objection to it. But that law requires doctors to then send patients to someone who will perform the procedure. Coll didn’t do that.
Another Illinois law is supposed to prevent situations like this too:
The Illinois Hospital Emergency Service Act explicitly identifies ectopic pregnancy as an acute medical condition that requires stabilizing care. If the facility is unable to provide that care, the law requires immediate transfer. A separate law in Illinois, called the Health Care Right of Conscience Act, does not apply in the context of emergency medical care, said Allison Siebeneck, director of the Women’s and Reproductive Rights Project at the ACLU of Illinois, which is supporting Perrone’s lawsuit.
“A hospital under federal law as well as state law has to both screen the patient and either stabilize them or to transfer them. This is what makes sense in an emergency. You can’t just say: ‘OK, bye,’” [Amplify Legal litigation director Molly] Duane said.
All of this was bizarre, partly because Coll is a board certified OB/GYN. She should know the risks involved with an ectopic pregnancy. But her own notes from their meeting weren’t in line with the field’s knowledge:
Then, instead of treating Perrone, she sent her to another location. Another Catholic location. Mercy Health. Which wasn’t even a hospital and refused to help her.
At that point, they started driving to Northwestern Medicine Huntley, 30 minutes away, and Perrone didn’t think she would make it:
As they left the second Mercy facility, one thought kept going through Ms. Perrone’s mind: “This is it, I am going to die.”
She was quickly admitted and soon after given the methotrexate. It had been a day and a half since the symptoms began. Far too long given the risks. “For the successful treatment of ectopic pregnancy, every hour counts,” the lawsuit noted.
That’s when Perrone posted about her predicament on social media, where she usually focuses on beauty products. She talked about Dr. Coll and Advocate Good Shepherd and how it wasn’t until she went to Northwestern that she was properly treated. She opened up the video by (accurately) saying, “There is a war against women’s bodies and let me tell you my experience.”
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(She didn’t name-check Dr. Coll in that video, though she confirmed Coll’s involvement in the comment thread.)
Days after that video, however, Perrone felt sudden severe pain and knew the drug hadn’t completely fixed the problem. She and her husband returned to Northwestern and the same doctor told her there were two options, both involving surgery. The doctor could remove the ectopic pregnancy without further damage, but if things were too far along, and her life was in danger, they would have to remove her other fallopian tube, removing the possibility of any future pregnancies.
They went through with the surgery… but because the tube was in danger of rupturing any moment, the doctor had to remove it to save Perrone’s life. It was devastating for her—but at least she was alive. What bothered her was how all of this could have been avoided if the pregnancy was treated sooner.
So she posted a new video. This time, she named Coll directly in it.
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“Had Dr. Coll intervened on Oct 9th when I showed up to the hospital, most likely I would still have my tube. And if she wouldn’t have dicked me around on Friday Oct 10th, maybe I would still have my tube. Maybe she could have given me methotrexate or even intervened surgically to save my tube. But because she could not in good faith practice that, I had to go forty minutes away from the hospital that I was currently at, and wait hours and hours, which with ectopic pregnancy, every single hour counts.”
After all this occurred, Perrone was getting ready to file a malpractice lawsuit against those responsible for her inability to have children in the future. But then something truly astonishing happened:
As Perrone began working with the lawyers on the lawsuit, she received a knock on the door – Coll was suing her for defamation.
“Not only has she lost her ability to have children without IVF, but she’s now being sued for speaking out about that experience,” Duane said.
The doctor whose inaction could have killed Perrone was suing her for talking about what she lived through. Coll demanded those two videos be taken down and a new one be posted in which Perrone retracted her statements.
Perrone not only refused that, her legal team pointed out “inconsistencies between Dr. Coll’s account of events and Ms. Perrone’s medical records and memory.”
In December, Coll formally filed her defamation lawsuit anyway, citing in part how the videos “prompted negative commentary, a cascade of adverse online Google reviews, and resulted in numerous existing patients contacting Dr. Coll and her staff expressing concern about the TikTok’s [sic].” Perrone has since asked a court to dismiss that lawsuit.
But now she’s fighting back in her own way. She’s filing her own lawsuit against Coll and Advocate Good Shepherd for violating Illinois law by not treating her immediately and for medical negligence. She points out that she’s not only dealing with infertility because of what they did, but medical expenses for the care they didn’t actually provide, and future expenses for potential IVF treatment.
All of this is a reminder of how Catholic hospitals and anti-abortion extremism can affect you no matter where you live. It’s not like anyone lacked all the information here. Perrone had an ectopic pregnancy and knew the risks. The medical tests confirmed her hunches. Everyone knew what needed to be done; what the Catholic hospitals and doctors couldn’t pull the trigger on was how serious things needed to be before they helped someone. They were willing to put her life in danger. Thank goodness she didn’t let that happen.
But even though the medical literature was clear about the risks and even though Illinois law was clear about a hospital’s obligations, and even though the doctor she begged for help from was a board-certified OB/GYN, none of it mattered because of faith-based ideology that treats abortion as if it’s some sort of sin.
That’s the ugly reality of what happens when the Catholic Church has any control over healthcare. They could have helped her the moment she walked through their doors. Instead, because of their lack of intervention, Perrone is unable to get naturally pregnant again. The damage has already been done.
There is a broader lesson to take away from all this, too: Anti-abortion extremism doesn’t stop at elective abortions. It inevitably affects miscarriages, emergency medicine, and even treatment for ectopic pregnancies when there’s literally no viable fetus to save and where any delay can cost a woman her life. The people who pretend to care about women and families are responsible for this woman not being able to have a larger family. And their negligence was completely unnecessary. If they treated Perrone by prioritizing her health, this whole disaster could have been avoided.
If dr. Coll doesn't like negative comments about her unprofessional conduct, maybe she should have acted in a professional way.
How twisted does your thinking have to be to come to the conclusion a tiny cluster of non-viable cells with no chance of survival, has more value than the mother? The Church’s position on contraception does not elevate the status of life, . . . it trivializes it. Throw in a slew of pedophile priests and I do not know why membership in that church isn't down to zero.