Here’s a nice one from 1998, via Stacy. Not Ireland – Louisiana.
Michelle Lee knows she should not have another child. Her heart pumps so weakly and irregularly that she has waited 2 1/2 years for a new one. The strain that pregnancy puts on the body, her doctors had sternly warned her for years, might kill her.
So last month, when she discovered she had accidentally gotten pregnant, Lee, 26, faced an agonizing prospect: saving her fetus or saving herself. She loves babies. Yet, finally, she went to Louisiana State University Medical Center, the century-old hospital whose cardiologists tend to her heart, and said she wanted an abortion.
The hospital refused.
A committee of five LSU doctors concluded that Lee’s chance of dying was not greater than 50 percent. And under Louisiana law, a public hospital could not perform an abortion on Lee unless her life were endangered. They decided her case didn’t meet the test.
Meh. 50 percent. Those are pretty good odds.