Woman suffers stillbirth after being ordered to keep working during labour

12 August 2023 , 17:14

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Salia and her husband have filed a lawsuit against the prison system after she was stopped from going to the hospital for more than two hours (Image: Facebook)

A prison guard is suing the prison where she worked after she was prevented from going to hospital for two and a half hours as she experienced extreme pain while seven months pregnant - with the baby then delivered stillborn.

Salia Issa, from Texas, claims she was accused by supervisors of lying about her contractions. She said she was also told she had to wait until a replacement arrived before she could leave her post.

She was told by medics that if she had managed to get to hospital sooner on the day, November 15, 2021, her baby could have been saved.

Salia and her husband, Fiston Rukengeza, filed the lawsuit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in 2022. They're seeking monetary damages to cover her medical bills, pain and suffering, and other things, including funeral expenses for her child.

"You just want to go home," Salia alleges her supervisor told her. The state attorney general's office and prison system have asked a judge to dismiss the case, with Republican attorney general Ken Paxton arguing that the unborn child did not have rights.

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Salia Issa was seven months pregnant when she began experiencing intense pain while at work (Facebook)

Mr Paxton is known for holding a strong pro-life stance, having declared on the day Roe v Wade was overturned: "I look forward to defending the pro-life laws of Texas and the lives of all unborn children moving forward."

As soon as the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in June 2022, Texas immediately banned abortion. Earlier this month, Mr Paxton celebrated when the state Supreme Court temporarily blocked a decision by a lower court which declared Texas' abortion ban unlawful.

"Protecting the health of mothers and babies is of paramount importance to the people of Texas a moral principle enshrined in the law," he said on August 5. He vowed his office would "uphold the values of the people of Texas by doing everything in its power to protect mothers and babies."

Despite this outspoken stance, when it came to Salia's lawsuit Mr Paxton is arguing the foetus had no rights. In a March footnote referring to the constitutional right to life, the Texas attorney general's office wrote: "Just because several states define an individual to include an unborn child does not mean that the Fourteenth Amendment does the same."

Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has been vocal about being pro-life, however has argued Salia's unborn child does not have rights (AP)

Salia's attorney, Ross Brennan, wrote in a court filing that the state's argument is "nothing more than an attempt to say - without explicitly saying - that an unborn child at seven months gestation is not a person."

Laura Hermer, a professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St Paul, Minnesota, described Texas' legal position as "seeking to have their cake and eat it too".

"This would not be the first time that the state has sought to claim to support the right to life of all foetuses, yet to act quite differently when it comes to protecting the health and safety of such foetuses other than in the very narrow area of prohibiting abortions," she said.

Last week, US Magistrate Judge Susan Hightower recommended the case be allowed to proceed, in part, without addressing the arguments about the rights of the foetus.

Fiona Leishman