Cross-posted from NWLC's blog, Womenstake

Last month, the National Women’s Law Center released a new report – Below the Radar: Health Care Providers’ Religious Refusals Can Endanger Pregnant Women’s Lives and Health. This report looks at a disturbing trend: women seeking care at Catholic hospitals for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies (where the pregnancy is developing outside of the uterus) are sometimes denied appropriate care, suffer delays in treatment, or are not given full information on their treatment options.

Some institutions and individuals allow religious doctrine, and not evidence based medical care, to dictate the kind of treatment that pregnant women can receive. This is because these health care providers consider any intervention that ends the pregnancy to be an abortion; even in cases where there is no medical treatment that would allow the pregnancy to continue, and the woman could suffer serious harm if she does not get treatment quickly.

Here at the National Women’s Law Center we are trying to identify instances where this practice may have occurred. What happens when women with pregnancy complications go to the emergency room for treatment? If you or someone you know has experienced a delay or denial of treatment, we want to know. Help us bring this hidden issue out from the shadows:  share your story with us.

If you went to an emergency room with symptoms of miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, even if you were not treated there, we still want to hear from you touches on a sensitive matter, and all responses will be kept strictly confidential.

If you want to learn more about this issue, please visit our website. Thank you in advance for sharing your stories with us.