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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — "My sole intention with Senate Bill 289 was to re-center health care decisions between a patient and her doctor by limiting government mandates," Stutts said in a statement.
"Let me also say that neither the bill nor today's decision is related to any patient case I have had in my medical career, despite media insinuations to the contrary," Stutts said.
While Stutts said his repeal effort was not about his former patients, Gene Church said he felt it was personal.
He said legislators left Rose's Law alone for 16 years until the man who was at the center of it was elected to the Alabama Legislature.
"I don't believe his statement. I don't believe most of his constituents, or most of the people in the country, would believe his statement," Church said.
Church filed a malpractice lawsuit against Stutts after his wife's death. The lawsuit was settled under confidential terms, Church said.
Church said his wife was discharged from the hospital 36 hours after giving birth. She returned because of extensive blood loss and was shown to be in congestive heart failure. She was discharged, then later had a heart attack and died in the ambulance that was transporting her to a Birmingham hospital.
"She said, 'I love you.' I said, 'I love you, too.' She said, 'I don't feel good.' And she went into cardiac arrest. .... We tried to revive her all the way to the hospital, but she was effectively dead by the time we got back," Church said.
It was later determined that she had a piece of the placenta left in her uterus after birth that caused the excessive blood loss.
Church said he decided to push for the law within days of his wife's death.
"How does a healthy 36-year-old die of childbirth complications in the United States?" he asked.
Rose's Law expanded upon a federal law regarding postpartum hospital stays. Federal law prohibits health insurance companies from restricting postpartum hospital stays for new mothers and their infants to fewer than 48 hours after normal vaginal deliveries or 96 hours after a C-section. However, doctors could discharge a patient earlier after consulting with the patients. The Alabama law goes further and requires a doctor to provide a written summary of the advantages and disadvantages of early discharge and to get a woman's approval in writing for an early discharge.
Rose's Law also requires particular bloodwork before hospital discharge. Stutts' bill would also remove a state requirement for women to be notified after a mammogram if they have dense breast tissue. Dense breast tissue is associated with an increased risk of developing breast cancer. However, experts do not agree on if additional tests should be done on women with dense breast tissue.
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