Care Denial

Harmonie (Oct 2025) – Illinois

Woman denied emergency care for ectopic pregnancy

“Honestly, it is so scary to be a woman in 2025 in America. Your religious beliefs should never come before my life or giving me life saving treatment. That’s just crazy to me. I can’t believe that this specialist try to convince me that it was a state law that she couldn’t intervene to save my life, but I go over to a hospital. That’s not practicing their religious beliefs before life-saving treatment and they can give me the treatment immediately because they understand it’s life-saving treatment not an abortion. This is just sick. I have honestly never been so afraid to die in my life, and I really did think I was gonna die. I felt like I kept hitting walls and nobody cared about my life or my choice for my body.” – Harmonie

Harmonie gave an interview to Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day. The 28-year-old had to go to multiple healthcare centers and hospitals before getting the care she needed. She was sure she was going to die because she had lost her right fallopian tube in another ectopic pregnancy a few years previously. When she was diagnosed again, she knew how dangerous the situation was and how important it was to get quick treatment.

The emergency room rushed her to an OBGYN specialist after detecting a mass on her left tube. But the doctor turned Harmonie away, telling the young woman and her husband that she wouldn’t intervene because there was “a 1% chance” the ectopic pregnancy was viable. She even led the pair to believe it was illegal for her to end the pregnancy. “I knew Illinois was a blue state,” said Harmonie. “But she kept repeating, ‘you’re not going to force me to give you an abortion.’”

After telling Harmonie to just “Google” another hospital, she sent the terrified young woman to a medical center without the capacity to treat her. By the time Harmonie went to yet another hospital, 40 minutes away from home, she was begging nurses in the hallway of the emergency room to help her. “Please someone listen to me, I don’t want to die,” she said.

Finally, someone did listen: doctors gave Harmonie methotrexate to help end the pregnancy—and expressed shock that her previous OBGYN hadn’t helped. It turns out that this particular OBGYN was affiliated with Ascension—a multi-billion dollar Catholic health system that’s been at the center of similar firestorms. A federal investigation found that an Ascension hospital in Texas violated EMTALA when they refused another woman care for her ectopic pregnancy in 2023.

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