{"id":4556,"date":"2026-07-23T00:50:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T00:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4556"},"modified":"2026-07-23T00:50:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T00:50:21","slug":"a-religious-hospital-denied-her-a-life-saving-drug-during-an-ectopic-pregnancy-she-lost-her-fertility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4556","title":{"rendered":"A religious hospital denied her a life-saving drug during an ectopic pregnancy. She lost her fertility"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u2018I kept asking her to help me,\u2019 Harmonie Perrone (pictured) says of Dr Dympna Coll of Advocate Good Shepherd. Photograph: Teresa Crawford for Abortion in America<\/figcaption>
\u2018I kept asking her to help me,\u2019 Harmonie Perrone (pictured) says of Dr Dympna Coll of Advocate Good Shepherd. Photograph: Teresa Crawford for Abortion in America<\/figcaption>A religious hospital denied her a life-saving drug during an ectopic pregnancy. She lost her fertility
\nThis article is more than 1 month old<\/p>\n

Harmonie Perrone, 28, is suing Advocate Good Shepherd in Illinois, where reproductive rights are enshrined in law<\/p>\n

Harmonie Perrone, 28, knew she was probably having an ectopic pregnancy, and she knew exactly what she needed to do: seek medical care immediately, before life-threatening complications<\/a> set in<\/p>\n

But she was denied that care twice as she feared for her life \u2013 and, after the delay in care, she lost her fertility, she says in a new lawsuit filed Monday<\/p>\n

All of this happened in Illinois, a top destination for abortion care, where reproductive rights are enshrined in law and medical providers are required to offer emergency care regardless of religious beliefs<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is so shocking about her situation is that it happened in a state where abortion is supposed to be among the most<\/a> protected, where it is supposed to be the most accessible,\u201d said Molly Duane, litigation director of Amplify Legal, which is involved in Perrone\u2019s lawsuit<\/p>\n

\u201cNotwithstanding these protections against state actors, you still have religiously affiliated hospitals like Advocate Good Shepherd that are effectively administering shadow abortion bans everywhere in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Perrone felt the pain and saw the blood, she immediately suspected she was having another<\/a> ectopic pregnancy. Years before, she\u2019d lost her right fallopian tube with the first ectopic pregnancy, but she was able to act quickly with the second and save her left fallopian tube by getting the medication methotrexate. The third time she felt the symptoms, she knew she needed to act as quickly as possible \u2013 and that her life was on the line, because complications could arise within hours. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends<\/a> administering methotrexate, the medication to treat ectopic pregnancy, as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

But when she went to her local hospital, Advocate Good Shepherd, she was not seen in person by the OB\/GYN, she said. They did ultrasounds and detected a mass on the left fallopian tube. Perrone and her husband had been trying to have a baby for years<\/p>\n

\u201cI was crying my eyes out,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to get methotrexate. I knew that this was the standard practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, she was sent home with an appointment the next day with an obstetrician-gynecologist at what turned out to be a med spa, where she was denied care again, Perrone said. She had just switched insurance policies a few days before and hadn\u2019t yet set up a new regular OB-GYN \u2013 and she was told Dr Dympna Coll was a specialist, Perrone said<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept asking her to help me,\u201d she said. But Coll refused to administer methotrexate, Perrone alleged. As she remembered it, the doctor told her \u201cwe have to weigh out the life of the mother and the baby, and there\u2019s a 1% chance that there is a baby in there\u201d. When Perrone asked about her right to an abortion under Illinois law, the doctor said \u201cyou\u2019re not going to bully me into doing this\u201d, Perrone said.<\/p>\n

Advocate Good Shepherd and Coll did not respond to the Guardian\u2019s press inquiries by publication time<\/p>\n

Perrone went to another clinic, and then on to a second hospital, with the growing fear that she was going to die. She felt betrayed by the medical providers she\u2019d trusted with her life. She remembered bellowing in the hallway of the second hospital: \u201cSomebody freaking help me, please.\u201d Finally, she received methotrexate, more than 24 hours after she first sought care<\/p>\n

Then, the hardest part. Perrone can\u2019t talk about it without crying. Six days later, at a sales meeting for work, she stood and felt intense pain. \u201cI knew,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have been trying to get pregnant for years, and now this is how it was coming to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perrone and her husband went straight to the second hospital this time, and she underwent surgery<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they were opening me up, my tube was already rupturing. That was the end of my fertility,\u201d she said. She believes if she\u2019d received methotrexate even hours earlier than she did, her tube could have been saved<\/p>\n

The Illinois Hospital Emergency Service Act explicitly identifies ectopic pregnancy as an acute medical condition that requires stabilizing care. If the facility is unable to provide that care, the law requires immediate transfer. A separate law in Illinois, called the Health Care Right of Conscience Act, does not apply in the context of emergency medical care, said Allison Siebeneck, director of the Women\u2019s and Reproductive Rights Project at the ACLU of Illinois, which is supporting Perrone\u2019s lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cA hospital under federal law as well as state law has to both screen the patient and either stabilize them or to transfer them. This is what makes sense in an emergency. You can\u2019t just say: \u2018OK, bye,\u2019\u201d Duane said. The lawyers have also submitted a federal complaint that the hospital violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (Emtala)<\/p>\n

Perrone went on TikTok to talk about her experiences \u2013 first about being denied care, and then about the loss of her fertility. Her videos went viral. As Perrone began working with the lawyers on the lawsuit, she received a knock on the door \u2013 Coll was suing her for defamation<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only has she lost her ability to have children without IVF, but she\u2019s now being sued for speaking out about that experience,\u201d Duane said<\/p>\n

Perrone is hesitant to try in vitro fertilization, a process that can take thousands of dollars and several rounds of treatment. \u201cIf I save, and I maybe open a credit card and I go and do this for myself and it doesn\u2019t work, that\u2019s another letdown. I don\u2019t want to go through that again,\u201d Perrone said. \u201cThat\u2019s a lot of hope to be crushed over and over and over again.\u201d She feels a strain already in her relationship with her husband because of the losses and the trauma.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to have a family with me, and I can\u2019t give him that,\u201d Perrone said. \u201cIt feels like a part of who we were is no longer there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Illinois is considered a haven state for protecting families like Perrone\u2019s, said Siebeneck. \u201cThese rights are protected under law. You absolutely have the right to go into any hospital emergency room in the state and receive emergency medical care,\u201d she said. Patients, whether they live in Illinois or travel from states with abortion bans, are \u201cexpecting to receive that emergency care, but whether or not they are able to can depend on which hospital they walk up to\u201d, Siebeneck added.<\/p>\n

That can have significant consequences on their health and well-being, she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want people to be deterred or to be afraid that they cannot access this care because of stories like this one.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Harmonie Perrone, 28, is suing Advocate Good Shepherd in Illinois, where reproductive rights are enshrined in law<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[254,255,108,241,253],"class_list":["post-4556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pregnancy","tag-denied","tag-drug","tag-hospital","tag-lifesaving","tag-religious"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4557,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions\/4557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}