California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office filed a motion June 9 in Humboldt County Superior Court seeking a judge’s order enforcing a stipulation reached in a lawsuit brought against Providence St. Joseph Hospital last year requiring it to comply with state’s Emergency Service Law and provide emergency abortive procedures when they are deemed medically necessary.
“The terms of the stipulation and court order against Providence St. Joseph are clear,” Bonta said in a press release. “Providence must fully comply with California’s Emergency Services Law and ensure that patients can access life-saving health services including emergency abortion care — no exceptions. Now, months after their stipulation and agreement to abide by the law, Providence St. Joseph is attempting to find wiggle room to shirk its duty to patients under the law. We refuse to let that happen.”
Providence, meanwhile, issued a statement reiterating its stance that the hospital is “transparent” about not performing elective abortions but asserting that “in emergencies” its care teams provide “medically necessary interventions to protect pregnant patients who are miscarrying or facing serious life-threatening conditions.” This stance, the hospital contends, is consistent with the California Emergency Services Law and the Catholic Ethical and Religious Directives it follows.
Filed in September, the landmark lawsuit alleges Providence violated multiple state laws when it declined to provide an emergency abortion procedure to Anna Nusslock, who arrived at the hospital with severe abdominal pain in February of 2024 after her water broke 15 weeks into her pregnancy with twins. Nusslock was diagnosed with preterm premature rupture of membranes and told that while one of her fetuses still had detectable heart tones, both were nonviable and would not survive, according to the lawsuit. The suit alleges she was warned by a doctor that attempting to continue the pregnancy carried “significant maternal morbidity and mortality risks.”
The suit — as well as another later brought by Nusslock against the hospital personally — alleges specialists at University of California, San Francisco Medical Center and a doctor at St. Joseph agreed immediate abortion care was recommended, though Nusslock was told the doctor was not “permitted to provide” it at St. Joseph so long as the either of the fetuses had detectable heart tones. Ultimately, Nusslock was transferred to Mad River Community Hospital, which has since shuttered its labor and delivery unit, and alleges she arrived in a deteriorating condition, having “passed an apple-sized blood clot,” and was rushed into emergency surgery.
The National Women’s Law Center, which brought the lawsuit on Nusslock’s behalf in April, issued a statement applauding the Attorney General’s Office’s recent filing.
“The hospital cannot agree to follow state law in a court order and then walk away when it becomes inconvenient,” the statements says. “Dr. Nusslock is still grappling with the trauma of being denied emergency abortion care, a violation that should never have happed in the first place.”
The referenced order was an approved stipulation reached shortly after the suit was filed in which Providence and the AG’s Office in which St. Joseph agreed its care staff will allow physicians to terminate a patient’s pregnancy when necessary to protect a pregnant person’s health.
But a footnote in a motion seeking dismissal of the case filed months later — and ultimately rejected by a Humboldt County Superior Court judge — indicated the hospital intended to continue following the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Healthcare Services.
“To the extent that the AG contends the stipulation requires [St. Joseph Hospital] to allow procedures that are not permitted by the [directives], SJH reserves the right to modify or vacate the stipulation if and when appropriate,” the filing stated.
The AG’s June 9 motion contends the hospital’s obligations under the agreed to and court-ordered stipulation “are as clear and straightforward as obligations can be,” noting the stipulation says the hospital “must fully comply” with the Emergency Services Law “with respect to pregnant patients experiencing emergency medical conditions.” The stipulation further states the hospital must let healthcare providers make the ultimate determination in these cases.
The motion states that it was filed after the hospital indicated it would file a motion seeking to modify the stipulation.
“In other words, SJH seeks to reinject vagueness into how it treats pregnant patients and, ultimately, open the door to deviate from the unambiguous obligations [the hospital] submitted to last year: Follow the law,” the motion states.
A tentative June 30 court date has been set for Judge Timothy Canning to hear arguments on the issue. Providence’s statement says the health system will address the AG’s position fully in its forthcoming legal response.
A third lawsuit, brought by a woman identified as Jane Doe with allegations similar to Nusslock’s, meanwhile, remains pending.
This article appears in Humboldt Crabs Baseball.
Providence Medical Center needs to decide if it wants to be a medical provider or a purveyor of superstition and false belief system headed by a Roman cross dresser. Religion has no place in health care, especially when it places life at risk for non-cult members. JW’s can’t prevent us all from having blood transfusions. Catholics should not be able to prevent us from having emergency medical care. Providence gave their word as part of the agreement to continue operating, now let’s hold them to it.