Texas woman dies after miscarriage delay under abortion ban

Josseli Barnica, a 28-year-old immigrant from Honduras residing in Texas, tragically passed away after developing a fatal infection during a miscarriage in September 2021.

Hospital records showed that Barnica was 17 weeks into her pregnancy when she experienced complications that led to an “in progress” miscarriage. Despite her condition, doctors at HCA Houston Healthcare Northwest reportedly did not expedite delivery or empty her uterus, citing Texas’s restrictive abortion laws that require a fetal heartbeat to cease before intervention. 

According to ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, Barnica’s husband recalled that doctors said terminating the pregnancy would be a “crime.”

For 40 hours, Barnica waited in the hospital with her uterus exposed to infection while the medical team monitored the fetus’s heartbeat. Ultimately, she delivered after the heartbeat ceased, but she later died from sepsis, a bacterial infection that medical experts say could have been prevented with earlier care. Barnica’s family, including her husband and young daughter, are now grappling with the sudden loss.

ProPublica investigated Barnica’s case, consulting over a dozen medical experts who described her death as “preventable” and her treatment as “egregious.” According to these experts, withholding timely care in such cases breaches medical standards and elevates the risk of life-threatening infections. In response, HCA Healthcare stated that it complies with state laws, emphasizing physicians’ independent judgment in medical decisions.

Texas’s abortion laws, which became stricter in 2021, require that a fetal heartbeat be absent before intervention in miscarriage cases. Although recent adjustments were made to permit exceptions for certain high-risk pregnancies, experts argue that ambiguous criteria still leave women vulnerable in cases like Barnica’s. 

Barnica’s situation has drawn comparisons to Savita Halappavanar’s death in Ireland, where a lack of medical intervention during miscarriage led to public outcry and eventual legislative reform. Advocates for policy change argue that Barnica’s death underscores critical gaps in Texas’s maternal health protections, with unclear guidelines and a continuing risk to patient lives in complex cases.