A Pregnant Texas Woman’s Death Exposes How Broken the Right-Wing Healthcare System Is
The New Yorker published an in-depth look at the death of a pregnant Texas woman, asking if abortion bans played a role in ending her life. Unequivocally, the answer is yes. Yet many other systemic failures created a perfect storm that all contributed to this woman’s untimely passing.
***Content warning: pregnancy complications, weight stigma, death***
Yeniifer Glick lived in rural Luling, Texas, most of her life. In her mid-twenties, doctors diagnosed Glick with high blood pressure and diabetes—both conditions run in her family. After battling COVID-19, Glick developed a pulmonary edema, where fluid fills the lungs, making breathing difficult and putting extra stress on the heart. Glick’s weight hovered around two hundred and sixty pounds. When she died, the autopsy report listed the cause of death as “hypertensive cardiovascular disease associated with morbid obesity” and a contributing factor of pregnancy. That summation grossly misconstrues the healthcare failures that led to her death.
Abortion bans prevent proper healthcare
In 2021, Texas passed one of the most strict abortion laws, S.B. 8, also known as the “Heartbeat Act.” This bill states no abortions can take place legally in Texas after six weeks gestation (most don’t know they are pregnant until at least 8 weeks) and a “fetal heartbeat” (which is not actually a heartbeat at all) is detected. The only exception is if the pregnant person’s life is in danger. After Roe v. Wade fell, pregnant people seeking abortions could no longer go around it because of federal protections. Not to mention the law to supposedly “save babies” has caused a rise in infant deaths.
One of the most heinous components of S.B. 8 is any citizen can sue any medical personnel for performing or aiding a patient to get an abortion. The bill allows any citizen to take civil action and sue an abortion provider for up to $10,000 in statutory damages. This piece of S.B. 8 played a crucial role in Glick’s story.
In late 2021, Glick discovered she was pregnant. At around seven weeks of pregnancy, Glick had trouble breathing and experienced vaginal bleeding. Fearing a miscarriage, Glick visited the only hospital in Luling. Although it doesn’t employ an ob-gyn or have a maternity ward, it is all that is available. Doctors determined the baby had a heartbeat and appeared normal. No one discussed how this pregnancy could put Glick in mortal danger. Throughout her pregnancy, Glick visited the hospital multiple times with trouble breathing and extremely high blood pressure.
At one point, she was taken by ambulance to a larger hospital over 30 miles away and admitted into the I.C.U. The medical report from that hospitalization listed Glick as “high risk for clinical decompensation/death.” Still, no one fully discussed how the pregnancy could end her life because of Texas law.
She recovered enough to be released from the hospital, but her condition fluctuated throughout the pregnancy. Her symptoms intensified on the day of her death when her blood pressure hit 213/146 and her oxygen levels dropped. Medical experts consulted by The New Yorker say if she hadn’t been pregnant, she would still be alive today.
System healthcare failures are killing people
We are only beginning to see the ill effects of abortion bans since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. There will probably be slews of stories like Glick’s coming to light over the next few months. Yet the right-wing attacks on providing affordable healthcare have been failing Americans for years and it continues to get worse.
Medical costs hit hardest in low-income communities. Glick, like many in her area of Texas, are uninsured and must pay for medicinal treatment out of pocket or face crippling debt. While pregnant, Glick attempted to get special coverage that allows undocumented women to receive prenatal care but never got a response from officials. The choice between cost and care caused Glick to stay out of the hospital, miss prenatal appointments, and continue working a physically demanding job while in a high-risk pregnancy.
One maternal-fetal expert The New Yorker consulted, Charles E. Brown, “considers her death a consequence of both S.B. 8 and a crisis long predating it: Texas’s inadequate funding of the medical needs of the poor.” Healthcare deserts haunt rural Texas among other parts of the United States. Hospitals with acute care are few and far between. Glick’s local hospital could not care for a pregnant woman. What obstetrician equipment they had was old, noting the only warming bed for a baby was missing a wheel and a nurse had to prop it up with her foot. Fully functional hospitals may be over an hour’s drive away, which has detrimental effects during medical emergencies.
On a personal note, as a larger-bodied person who has had two uncomplicated pregnancies, blaming Glick’s weight rather than her other health conditions is fatphobic and counterproductive to providing actual healthcare. More important to overall health are things like nutrition and access to proper mental and physical care. People in low-income communities suffer from finding the resources they need because of a lack of money and time. If you’re working long hours at jobs that don’t provide a liveable wage, or struggling to find work, you don’t prioritize health until it is an emergency.
Conservatives would rather dump funding into creating abortion watchdog forces than provide affordable healthcare to people who live in this country. Trying to overturn Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act and tarnish his legacy has taken priority over ensuring people can see a doctor without going into debt. The GOP sees universal healthcare programs as “socialist” rather than what they really are: life-saving.
(featured image: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
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