Since Texas banned abortion, no one has studied the statewide effects on pregnant women experiencing complications. Here’s how we sifted through data on millions of pregnancy hospitalizations and analyzed the outcomes before and after the ban. Read more at ProPublica
The US maternal mortality rate almost doubled between 2018 and 2022, with rates of deaths among Black and Indigenous expecting or new mothers increasing at a disproportionally fast clip. States that Donald Trump won may be hit especially hard by NIH cuts: they are home to some of the country’s worst maternal mortality rates. To … Read more
Black women in the US died at a rate nearly 3.5 times higher than white women around the time of childbirth in 2023, as maternal mortality fell below pre-pandemic levels overall but racial gaps widened, according to federal health data released Wednesday. In 2021 and 2022, the maternal death rate for Black women was about … Read more
As I’ve reported for Salon this year, the direct and indirect effects of abortion bans and restrictions impact far more than just people who can get pregnant. From putting pressure on care in states where abortion remains accessible to inflicting trauma and grief on those who are forced to travel to access care, here’s how … Read more
The short version is that they’ve been strategically redefining ‘abortion’ across law, culture and medicine, while pushing the false claim that abortion is never necessary to save a person’s life. The end game is legislation that bans abortion in all cases, mandating that doctors only end life-threatening pregnancies using c-sections or induced vaginal birth, no … Read more
This censorship effort doesn’t just impact the data about abortion ban-related deaths, either. Before 2022, both Texas and Georgia had some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. There’s been an eye-popping 56% rise in pregnancy-related deaths in Texas over the past few years. Anyone who actually cared about women or “life” would want … Read more
A Texas committee that is meant to review pregnancy-related deaths in the state won’t review cases from 2022 and 2023, the Washington Post reported. That means that pregnancy-related deaths since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs decision won’t be reviewed in the state. In Texas, doctors who violate the state’s strict … Read more
But the new laws were already having an effect on the health-care system. Across Texas, residency applications in ob-gyn dropped significantly. Data from the Gender Equity Policy Institute revealed a fifty-six-per-cent spike in maternal deaths in the state between 2019 and 2022. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Texas was no longer an … Read more
Wilson said Georgia’s decision to dismiss its committee could cause greater harm. “What message is being said to the families who lost their loved ones?” she said. “There’s going to be even less accountability for this to not happen again.” Read more at ProPublica
But more than 100 Texas OB-GYNs disagree with his position. In a public letter, written in response to ProPublica’s reporting, they urged changes. “As OB-GYNs in Texas, we know firsthand how much these laws restrict our ability to provide our patients with quality, evidence-based care,” they said. Texas’ abortion ban threatens up to 99 years … Read more
