Article Pregnant in California? What Catholic hospital rules can mean in an emergency
Article Pregnant in California? What Catholic hospital rules can mean in an emergency
Nov 22 2025, 9:50 AM
https://archive.ph/GAvxl
Quote:In September 2024, around the time Harrison was denied care at Mercy San Juan, Bonta sued a different Catholic hospital (opens in new tab) — Providence St. Joseph in Humboldt County — alleging that it refused to treat pregnant patients facing life-threatening complications for religious reasons. The attorney general called Providence St. Joseph’s policies “draconian.”
One patient who was later added to the lawsuit was forced to wait while staff monitored her for sepsis, despite a nonviable pregnancy and signs of infection. Providence St. Joseph denied her care during a pregnancy in 2021 and again in 2022. Another patient, Anna Nusslock, was denied a medically necessary termination even as she faced what the AG later described as an “immediate threat to her life and health.”
“People in California assume this doesn’t happen here,” said K.M. Bell, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, which is representing Nusslock in a separate civil suit.
Bell said many refusals of care are never communicated to the patient. “Typically, somebody is left sitting in a hospital bed, bleeding and in pain, without care being provided — and they don’t even know why.”
Providence St. Joseph is the only labor-and-delivery hospital for miles. “In this community, there are no alternatives,” said Bell. “Patients were being told they needed to be helicoptered to San Francisco.”
https://sfstandard.com/2025/11/20/california-catholic-hospitals-religious-rules-deny-maternal-care/
https://archive.ph/GAvxl
Quote:In September 2024, around the time Harrison was denied care at Mercy San Juan, Bonta sued a different Catholic hospital (opens in new tab) — Providence St. Joseph in Humboldt County — alleging that it refused to treat pregnant patients facing life-threatening complications for religious reasons. The attorney general called Providence St. Joseph’s policies “draconian.”
One patient who was later added to the lawsuit was forced to wait while staff monitored her for sepsis, despite a nonviable pregnancy and signs of infection. Providence St. Joseph denied her care during a pregnancy in 2021 and again in 2022. Another patient, Anna Nusslock, was denied a medically necessary termination even as she faced what the AG later described as an “immediate threat to her life and health.”
“People in California assume this doesn’t happen here,” said K.M. Bell, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, which is representing Nusslock in a separate civil suit.
Bell said many refusals of care are never communicated to the patient. “Typically, somebody is left sitting in a hospital bed, bleeding and in pain, without care being provided — and they don’t even know why.”
Providence St. Joseph is the only labor-and-delivery hospital for miles. “In this community, there are no alternatives,” said Bell. “Patients were being told they needed to be helicoptered to San Francisco.”
