California sues Catholic hospital for not providing emergency care to woman in peril

Anna Nusslock needed a life-saving abortion. A Catholic hospital gave her a bucket and towels and told her to drive elsewhere.

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California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta is suing a Catholic hospital, saying they denied a woman emergency medical care because, in their view, it violated their religious beliefs. A state law requires all hospitals to help patients in those situations.

Anna Nusslock speaks at a press conference while California AG Rob Bonta (right) looks on (screenshot via YouTube)

According to the lawsuit, back in February, a woman named Anna Nusslock was rushed to Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka because her water broke only 15 weeks into pregnancy. She was in pain and bleeding prior to that moment and tests at the hospital confirmed that the twins she was carrying would not survive. That alone was a tragic situation. But the hospital made everything worse.

At that point, the focus needed to be on helping Nusslock survive because “she was at increased risk of serious complications with every minute that passed.” That meant removing the fetuses from her body—both to avoid immediate health problems (the possibility of infection was serious) and to protect her ability to have kids later on.

The normal procedure would have been a medical abortion. But, since this was a Catholic institution, “Instead of providing the emergency medical care she needed, Providence Hospital offered her a bucket and towels.”

The doctor said there was still a detectable heartbeat for one of the fetuses so no abortion could occur. The other option was to wait for Nusslock’s health to get worse… even though she was already at risk of dying.

Dogma overrode expertise. (The doctor in question knew how bad this was too, telling Nusslock, “I know.... it is just horrible.”)

The medical professionals (who knew better but were required to follow the rules of the Catholic bishops setting hospital policy) said there was another option: Nusslock could be airlifted to another hospital. A real hospital. A secular hospital that specialized in high-risk pregnancies. But getting airlifted would increase her bill by tens of thousands of dollars and she knew insurance wouldn’t cover it. She also had no desire to go there without her husband by her side since he would not have been able to go on the helicopter.

Could she drive the five hours there? The doctor told her, “If you try to drive, you will hemorrhage and die before you get to a place that can help you.”

So they told her to drive to a different (more local, more limited) medical facility 20 minutes away—with the bucket and towels. They made her drive there even though prolonging her care put her health in more jeopardy—and even though it went against any decent medical advice. (She could have taken an ambulance, but that would have been costly as well and it would have been just as dangerous since care would be delayed.)

Thankfully, the 20-minute drive was incident-free. Still, the new doctor she met at the other hospital said she was “actively hemorrhaging” when she arrived.

She never should have been placed in that situation.

Nusslock was lucky, in a way, because the new hospital she was sent to had the equipment to give her the emergency care she needed. That same hospital, however, is shutting down its labor and delivery services later this month. What would have happened if her emergency occurred in 2025 instead of 2024? She would probably die.

That’s what the attorney general suggests in his press release: “The next person in Anna’s situation will face an agonizing choice of risking a multi-hour drive to another hospital or waiting until they are close enough to death for Providence to intervene.”

As it turns out, California’s Emergency Services Law is specifically meant to protect patients in these situations. It prohibits “patient dumping” and requires any facility with an emergency department open to the public (which was the case for this Catholic-run hospital) to provide emergency medical care. They cannot legally send a patient away to avoid performing an abortion even if they have the right to refuse such care in non-emergency situations.

In addition to filing a lawsuit against the hospital, Bonta also asked the courts for a preliminary injunction, basically asking the courts for a blanket ruling that forces Providence St. Joseph to obey the law and give patients in emergency situations the care they need.

The hospital responded to the lawsuit with a heavy dose of corporate-speak that doesn’t address the elephant in the room:

A spokesperson for Providence Health, the hospital’s parent company headquartered in Washington state, said in a statement that Monday morning was “the first Providence had heard of the California attorney general’s lawsuit, and we are currently reviewing the filings to understand what is being alleged.”

Then they just straight-up lied:

“Providence is deeply committed to the health and wellness of women and pregnant patients and provides emergency services to all who walk through our doors in accordance with state and federal law,” the spokesperson said.

The reason we’re having this discussion at all is because they literally did not provide necessary services to someone who walked through their doors.

They’ll respond in court eventually, but it’s not like the situation is that complicated. A patient needed emergency care. That care involved an abortion. The Catholic hospital refused to perform the procedure because it prioritizes almost-dead fetuses over living women. They wanted Nusslock to suffer even more before they’d even consider helping her out. They’re so “pro-life” that they’re willing to let women die in order to avoid performing abortions.

If anything, this isn’t even about abortions. This case is about whether Catholic hospitals should be required to help patients, period. There’s a saying among liberals that “abortion is health care” and this is a perfect example of how that’s true. This wasn’t a patient who wanted to have an abortion. This was a patient who needed one in order to save her own life. But Catholic Church bishops, like so many anti-abortion activists, have no ability to distinguish between the two.

What’s scary is that California is, famously and obviously, a blue state. If a patient can be denied emergency abortion care there, imagine how much worse the situation would be somewhere else. This isn’t just the result of the Dobbs decisions; it’s the result of the power and wealth of the Catholic Church, which has gobbled up so many community hospitals across the country without increasing the amount of care patients can get in return.

I just posted the other day about how, in Colorado, all hospitals are now required to tell the public what services they will and won’t provide. That sort of database is only needed because there are so many Catholic hospitals that refuse to offer basic services. Most people don’t realize that their options are limited when they enter one of those facilities—and for patients like Nusslock, they don’t have a choice about where to go because they’re in a race against time. In an medical emergency, no one should have to be concerned about the religious beliefs of the people running a hospital.

When faith-based rules are elevated over medical expertise, patients ultimately suffer. If the Catholic Church has no interest in helping patients in tragic situations, then it’s long past time for them to get out of the health care business entirely.

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