ProPublica: A Coast Guard Commander Miscarried. She Nearly Died After Being Denied Care.

[Dennis Donovan]

ProPublica - A Coast Guard Commander Miscarried. She Nearly Died After Being Denied Care.

U.S. service members have long faced strict limits on abortions, even when used to resolve miscarriages. Under federal law, the military will only pay for abortions in cases of rape, incest or to save the mother’s life.

by Erin Edwards for ProPublica and Robin Fields
Dec. 13, 5 a.m. EST


Coast Guard Cmdr. Elizabeth Nakagawa holds a sonogram with her husband. Credit:Rachel Bujalski for ProPublica

The night the EMTs carried Elizabeth Nakagawa from her home, bleeding and in pain, the tarp they’d wrapped her in reminded her of a body bag.

Nakagawa, 39, is a Coast Guard commander: stoic, methodical, an engineer by trade. But as they maneuvered her past her young daughters’ bedroom, down the narrow steps and into the ambulance, she felt a stab of fear. She might never see her girls again.

Then came a blast of anger. She’d been treated for a miscarriage before. She knew her life never should have been in danger.

Earlier that day, April 3, 2023, Nakagawa had been scheduled to have a surgical procedure called a D&C, or dilation and curettage, to remove fetal tissue after losing a very wanted pregnancy. But that morning, she was told the surgery had been canceled because Tricare, the military’s health insurance plan, refused to pay for it.

While her doctor appealed, Nakagawa waited. Then the cramps and bleeding began.

/snip

[Clouds Passing]

1. Elizabeth

[Bettie]

2. The goal may not explicitly be killing women

but the end result is that women will die.

Pregnancy isn't a death pact.

[keithbvadu2]

5. The goal is control. Dead women are merely an acceptable loss to the religious right.

[Irish_Dem]

6. Killing women is on purpose.

It is a way to frighten and control women.

A way to let them know they have no power.
Males will determine whether they live or die

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Barbaric.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Again. If women want safe pregnancies, or want to survive miscarriages they need to

seriously plan to have their pregnancies in blue states, where they'll be treated as human beings.

I am just wondering, at what point do these testimonials, where the woman who survived a miscarriage says, "what happened? Why didn't they help me?" just begin to ring hollow? You know what happened. You got pregnant in a red state.

[LeftInTX]

9. She was in California. State didn't matter.

It was her insurance, the US military's Tricare. Tricare does not cover abortions due to the Hyde Amendment. Tricare told her no. They stopped covering life saving procedures are Roe was overturned.

[peregrinus]

8. U.S. birthrates are about to drop considerably

I’ve seen countless articles and spoken with many women who are going abstinent or getting their tubes tied. The exodus of migrants out of the U.S. plus the dying boomers is going to see a significant decrease in U.S. population.

[Silent Type]

10. We can't even get government healthcare programs right. Time Congress gets off its rear.

[Maru Kitteh]

11. The war on women will continue apace.

[Initech]

12. Support the troops, my ass.