SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
propublica
'Republican Abortion Bans Kill Women': Maternal Sepsis Rates Soar in Texas
"It is kind of mind-blowing that even before the bans researchers barely looked into complications of pregnancy loss in hospitals," said one expert.
Feb 20, 2025
"This is exactly what we predicted would happen and exactly what we were afraid would happen."
That's what Dr. Lorie Harper, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist in Austin, said after reviewing the data behind a ProPublica analysis published Thursday revealing that, since Texas banned abortion in 2021, the rate of sepsis soared by more than 50% for women hospitalized in the state when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester.
In the years immediately preceding Texas' abortion ban, the rate of sepsis—a life-threatening condition caused by infection—for women hospitalized in the second trimester of pregnancy held relatively steady around 3%. Since the ban, the sepsis rate for such women has shot up to nearly 5%.
"After the state banned abortion, dozens more pregnant and postpartum women died in Texas hospitals than had in pre-pandemic years, which ProPublica used as a baseline to avoid Covid-19-related distortions," states the report by Lizzie Presser, Andrea Suozzo, Sophie Chou, and Kavitha Surana.
Republican abortion bans kill women. Texas’ maternal mortality rate increased 33% since they banned abortion and threatened doctors with 99 years in prison. You never see laws targeting and denying healthcare for men that increases their risk of death.
[image or embed]
— Melanie D’Arrigo ( @darrigomelanie.bsky.social) February 20, 2025 at 5:51 AM
The analysis notes that "the standard of care for miscarrying patients in the second trimester is to offer to empty the uterus," which can lower the risk of infection and, by extension, sepsis. However, some hospitals don't allow doctors to perform the potentially lifesaving procedure until after a fetal heartbeat stops, or until they find a life-threatening complication.
That's because under Texas' misnomered "Heartbeat Law," pregnant people who have abortions cannot be penalized, but anyone who performs or aids in the procurement of the procedure faces as many as 99 years in prison, up to a $100,00 fine, and the possible loss of their professional license.
Texas empowers private individuals to sue anyone who "knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion" after the sixth week of pregnancy, a period before which many people even know they are pregnant. Plaintiffs who win in court are entitled to a reward of $10,000 plus costs and attorneys' fees.
Although the law contains an exception for "a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy," the authors of the ProPublica analysis noted that "the definition of what constitutes an emergency has been subject to confusion and debate."
In short, healthcare providers fear running afoul of the ambiguous law. This has resulted in deadly and life-threatening delays in care.
As the report highlights:
Forced to wait 40 hours as her dying fetus pressed against her cervix, Josseli Barnica risked a dangerous infection. Doctors didn't induce labor until her fetus no longer had a heartbeat.
Physicians waited, too, as Nevaeh Crain's organs failed. Before rushing the pregnant teenager to the operating room, they ran an extra test to confirm her fetus had expired.
Both women had hoped to carry their pregnancies to term, both suffered miscarriages, and both died.
"It's black and white in the law, but it's very vague when you're in the moment," Dr. Tony Ogburn, an OB-GYN in San Antonio, told ProPublica.
Republican lawmakers who helped write Texas' law have recently said they're open to revisions aimed at protecting pregnant peoples' lives in light of the harms reported by ProPublica and others. Last month, Republican Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that "I do think we need to clarify any language so that doctors are not in fear of being penalized if they think the life of the mother is at risk."
However, it is uncertain how or when the law might be amended. Meanwhile, deaths attributed to abortion bans have also been reported—and reportedly covered up—in other states.
"It is kind of mind-blowing," perinatal epidemiologist Alison Gemmill told ProPublica, "that even before the bans researchers barely looked into complications of pregnancy loss in hospitals."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Report Says Biden's 'Empty Threats' on Gaza Fed Israeli Impunity
One Middle East expert said that it's "hard to avoid the conclusion" that the U.S. administration's ultimatums to Israel "have all just been a smokescreen."
Jan 15, 2025
New reporting published Wednesday details the impotence and insincerity of President Joe Biden's "multiple threats, warnings, and admonishments" to Israel as it annihilated the Gaza Strip, killing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians while receiving tens of billions of dollars in U.S. arms and unwavering diplomatic support.
Writing for ProPublica, Brett Murphy showed how multiple "red lines" issued by Biden administration officials were ignored by Israel with impunity. Murphy highlighted Secretary of State Antony Blinken's October 2024 demand that Israel take "urgent and sustained actions" to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza—mainly by allowing far more aid into the embattled strip—within 30 days or face a military aid cutoff.
"Netanyahu's conclusion was that Biden doesn't have enough oomph to make him pay a price."
Thirty days came and went without significant improvement or letup in Israel's onslaught. Yet the Biden administration insisted it found no indication that Israel was using U.S.-supplied weapons illegally. The arms flow continued.
As Murphy reported:
That choice was immediately called into question. On November 14, a U.N. committee said that Israel's methods in Gaza, including its use of starvation as a weapon, was "consistent with genocide." Amnesty International went further and concluded a genocide was underway. The International Criminal Court also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister for the war crime of deliberately starving civilians, among other allegations.
"Government officials worry Biden's record of empty threats have given the Israelis a sense of impunity," wrote Murphy.
This reporting is so utterly damning. www.propublica.org/article/bide...
[image or embed]
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes.bsky.social) January 15, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, told Murphy that "Netanyahu's conclusion was that Biden doesn't have enough oomph to make him pay a price, so he was willing to ignore him."
"Part of it is that Netanyahu learned there is no cost to saying 'no' to the current president," al-Omari added.
Conversely, Murphy noted: "On Wednesday, after months of negotiations, Israel and Hamas reached a cease-fire deal. While it will become clear over the next days and months exactly what the contours of the agreement are, why it happened now, and who deserves the most credit, it's plausible that [U.S. President-elect Donald] Trump's imminent ascension to the White House was its own form of a red line."
"Early reports suggest the deal looks similar to what has been on the table for months," he added, "raising the possibility that if the Biden administration had followed through on its tough words, a deal could have been reached earlier, saving lives."
As Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, told Murphy, "It's hard to avoid the conclusion that [Biden's] red lines have all just been a smokescreen."
"The Biden administration decided to be all-in and merely pretended that it was trying to do something," Walt added, as Israel kept killing Palestinians with U.S.-supplied weapons and continued a "complete siege" blamed for widespread starvation and sickness in the Gaza Strip.
Murphy wrote that Trump "will inherit a demoralized State Department" in which many officials who haven't already resignedhave "become disenchanted with the lofty ideas they thought they represented."
As one senior department official told Murphy, Gaza "is the human rights atrocity of our time."
"I work for the department that's responsible for this policy. I signed up for this," the official added. "I don't deserve sympathy for it."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Georgia Fires Entire Maternal Mortality Panel After Reporting on Abortion Ban Deaths
"This is how they cover up what abortion bans do—fire anyone who helps tell the stories of harm," said one journalist. "Everyone who is or can be pregnant will pay the price."
Nov 21, 2024
Georgia officials fired everyone on the Maternal Mortality Review Committee after ProPublicareported that the panel found the deaths of two women whose care was restricted by the state's abortion ban were preventable, the news outlet revealed Thursday.
ProPublica first exposed the committee's findings for Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller in September, sparking a flood of criticism directed at abortion care restrictions and the primarily Republican politicians who impose them. Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who was running for the White House, even traveled to Atlanta to pay tribute to the two women.
"They didn't like that reporters found out that the state's ban killed two women."
Thurman and Miller's stories, as the news outlet acknowledged Thursday, "became a central discussion" in not only the presidential contest—ultimately won by Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who has bragged about the role he played in reversing Roe v. Wade—but also ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights in 10 states, seven of which succeeded.
In a November 8 letter obtained by ProPublica, Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey wrote that an "investigation was unable to uncover which individual(s) disclosed confidential information" despite state law and confidential agreements signed by panel members barring such disclosures.
Toomey explained that the committee was immediately "disbanded," a replacement panel will be formed through a new application process, and additional procedures are under consideration regarding confidentiality, oversight, and organizational structure.
ProPublica reported that the office of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp—who appointed Toomey—declined to comment and referred questions to the health department, whose spokesperson also declined to comment, saying that the letter, "speaks for itself."
As the outlet detailed:
Reproductive rights advocates say Georgia's decision to dismiss and restructure its committee also could have a chilling effect on the committee's work, potentially dissuading its members from delving as deeply as they have into the circumstances of pregnant women's deaths if it could be politically sensitive.
"They did what they were supposed to do. This is why we need them," said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, one of the groups challenging Georgia's abortion ban in court. "To have this abrupt disbandment, my concern is what we are going to lose in the process, in terms of time and data?"
Other reproductive rights advocates and journalists were similarly critical in response to the new reporting from ProPublica—which has also covered the deaths of two women in Texas: Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain.
"Women died because they received no life-saving care as they were having miscarriages in Georgia and the state responded by simply eradicating the committee that investigated deaths of pregnant women," declared writer and organizer Hannah Riley.
The National Institute for Reproductive Health, an advocacy group, asserted that "when anti-abortion politicians find FACTS inconvenient, they dismantle the systems meant to hold them accountable."
New York magazine senior correspondent Irin Carmon, whose forthcoming book is about pregnancy in the United States, similarly said: "This is how they cover up what abortion bans do—fire anyone who helps tell the stories of harm. Everyone who is or can be pregnant will pay the price."
Jessica Valenti, author of the newsletterAbortion, Every Day and the bookAbortion, also argued that Georgia officials fired the panel members because "they didn't like that reporters found out that the state's ban killed two women."
"I wrote about this in my book—this is how they cover up our deaths," Valenti continued. "In Idaho, they disbanded the Maternal Mortality Review Committee altogether; in Texas, they put a well-known anti-abortion activist on there to skew the data."
"I guarantee you that when Georgia replaces those seats on the Maternal Mortality Review Committee, they're going to put anti-abortion activists on there," she added. "Just watch."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular