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A Tennessee woman who sought to undergo sterilization surgery last week was abruptly blocked from receiving the procedure, with hospital staff informing her they decided they had a “duty to protect her sacred fertility.”
The woman sought a salpingectomy, a type of surgery that removes fallopian tubes, after several years of trying various birth control methods to no avail.
“Since I was young, I’ve never wanted kids,” she told local news media. “And I’ve wanted to pursue sterilization since I learned that that was something that a person could do. I’ve tried a lot of different options for birth control. None of them have worked for me.”
The woman made the appointment at Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital Midtown long before arriving at the hospital last Friday. Hours into her pre-surgery preparations, after she already had an IV placed in her arm, she was told by the Catholic Ethics Oversight Committee that she couldn’t undergo the surgery.
“I had spent a long time emotionally preparing, moving my schedule around it and just, you know, getting ready” for the surgery, she said. “Women I know with chronic health issues have always struggled to feel listened to by doctors. [But e]ven not having any like, chronic health issues, I’ve struggled to feel listened to by doctors.”
The woman is now waiting for a refund, having prepaid for the surgery.
The decision by Ascension comes less than a year after Tennessee Republicans passed House Bill 1044 into law last April. The law, otherwise known as the Medical Ethics Defense Act, grants doctors and medical centers the ability to refuse to perform a medical procedure if it goes against their morals.
At the time of its passage, opponents blasted the law as potentially discriminatory, allowing doctors to make such decisions based on a person’s identity. In this case, it appears to be based on the patient being a woman, as Ascension does have doctors who perform vasectomy services.
Ascension has faced criticism in the past over doctors making similar decisions. In 2024, the health group was found to have violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) Act for delaying emergency care for a woman’s ectopic pregnancy in Texas. Ascension refused to treat another woman for her ectopic pregnancy in Illinois last year, resulting in the woman losing her fallopian tubes.
Since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court upended abortion protections established by Roe v. Wade, Tennessee has enforced its “trigger ban,” which, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, “prohibits abortions at all stages of pregnancy, with limited medical emergency exceptions.” Carveouts for “emergency exceptions” are often still restrictive, however, as laws in states like Tennessee don’t provide guidance for when an emergency begins, or even what kind of situations are considered an emergency.
The woman cited Tennessee’s restrictive abortion law as a motivating factor for her to undergo the procedure.
“I went on birth control at a young age after being assaulted,” she said. “That’s another big reason I wanted to pursue sterilization. Because we live in a state that, you know, you can’t get an abortion.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to remove identifying information.
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