AUSTIN, TEXAS — June 22, 2026 — Today, Lynn Callaway filed a federal complaint against two Austin-area hospitals–Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Round Rock and St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center–along with complaints to the Texas Medical Board and the Texas Board of Nursing against individual medical providers–for delaying and denying her emergency care during a painful and dangerous miscarriage in October 2025. Mrs. Callaway’s drawn-out denial of miscarriage care occurred months after members of the Texas legislature claimed to have “clarified” the state’s abortions bans for medical circumstances similar to what she faced. Yet, as the complaint details,  Mrs. Callaway was nevertheless repeatedly denied necessary and legal care for a miscarriage at seven weeks of pregnancy. 

Mrs. Callaway’s federal complaint against the hospitals is submitted under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires hospitals to provide screening and stabilizing treatment to anyone in a medical emergency, including emergencies related to early pregnancy loss. Mrs. Callaway was denied emergency care at both hospitals despite her severe and worsening symptoms, including abdominal pain, bleeding, and signs of infection.

It took seven days, three different hospital emergency rooms, and countless calls to her OB/GYN’s office before Mrs. Callaway was finally given the drug misoprostol to speed her miscarriage–a medication also used for early abortion care. While at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center, Mrs. Callaway, who is Black, was tested for sexually transmitted diseases despite no indication of any risk factors. She was sent home with instructions to take over-the-counter Tylenol, and later told that because her abnormal labs were "not necessarily life or limb threatening," she could not be provided any additional care. Mrs. Callaway next went to St. David's Round Rock Medical Center where medical professionals acknowledged she had developed an infection and prescribed antibiotics, but then discharged her without further treatment. Still in pain, Mrs. Callaway was left to deal with her miscarriage at home and on her own. 

Mrs. Callaway spent her 40th birthday curled on her bathroom floor, afraid for her life. Then, months later, while traveling in Europe, she began hemorrhaging and sought emergency room care. In a hospital half way across the world, she discovered that she had retained pregnancy tissue as a result of the delays and denials of care in Texas.

“When I was in the hospital, I asked myself: Are the doctors waiting until I’m at the brink of death?” said Mrs. Callaway. “There are so many women who are turned away from emergency rooms and left to die alone. I am one of the lucky ones who lived. My goal in filing these complaints is to make change and to ensure no more harm is done to Texans seeking timely, essential, and legal miscarriage care.”

“Mrs. Callaway’s experience shows that Texas’s ‘clarification’ of the abortion bans last year was anything but. So long as abortion bans remain in place,  pregnant Texans will be denied routine pregnancy care even when that care is supposedly legal under state law, said Molly Duane, Litigation Director of Amplify Legal, a non-profit legal organization representing Mrs. Callaway in these actions. 

“Texas politicians need to stop micromanaging healthcare, but Texas doctors also need to do better,” said Ms. Duane. “We are asking for an investigation into Mrs. Callaway’s case for deviations from the standard of care and/or indications of medical racism, which can manifest as a dismissal of Black women’s pain and overt over-testing for unrelated and unfounded issues, such as STDs.”

Mrs. Callaway’s complaints request investigations into the treatment of pregnant patients requesting miscarriage care at Baylor Scott & White and St. David’s, as well as individual medical providers involved in Mrs. Callaway’s care.

The complaints can be found HERE. For press inquiries, you may contact Amplify Legal at info@abortioninamerica.org.

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Mrs. Callaway is represented by Amplify Legal, the litigation arm of Abortion in America.

Abortion in America, a nonpartisan, non-profit project of Hopewell Fund, is a national effort to bring greater public attention and urgency to the toll abortion bans are taking on people’s health, lives, work, and families. Abortion in America is focused on documenting and sharing personal stories, supporting and organizing people who come forward to share their experiences, and creating change with organizing, strategic partnerships, and litigation through Amplify Legal. To learn more about Abortion in America, please visit abortioninamerica.org.