AP’s Amanda Seitz in Washington reported exclusively on the results of a first-of its-kind federal investigation of hospitals that refused to provide an emergency abortion to a woman whose premature labor put her life at risk.
Since taking over the health policy beat last year, Seitz has aggressively reported on how the Biden administration planned to try to counteract the abortion bans that were proliferating in conservative states after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. She spent considerable time building sources, leading to a tip: a federal investigation found that two hospitals violated federal law when they refused to give an emergency abortion to a woman whose premature labor put her life in jeopardy. The source gave Amanda access to the documents detailing the findings, including the name of the patient and the hospitals involved.
The story resonated with the public and AP customers, appearing on 21 front pages, including the Kansas City Star, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Dallas Morning News. It had 191,000 page views on AP News, nearly half coming from social media. It was viewed nearly 1 million times on Twitter.