When Anna Nusslock showed up at Providence St. Joseph Hospital 15 weeks pregnant and in severe pain, a doctor delivered devastating news: The twins she and her husband had so desperately wanted were not viable. Further, her own health was in danger, and she needed an emergency abortion to prevent hemorrhaging and infection. St. Joseph's, in the small Northern California coastal city of Eureka, refused to provide the care she required because doctors could detect fetal "heart tones."
