A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban

The number of women in Texas who died while pregnant, during labor or soon after childbirth increased rapidly following the state’s abortion ban in 2021, a report that overlays new analysis of federal public health data reveals.

An analysis by the Gender Equity Policy Institute shows that from 2019 up to this year, maternal mortality cases in Texas increased by 56 percent even as the national average was only increasing by 11 percent. The nonprofit research group pored through CDC communications released to the public and produced this analysis, which NBC News obtained first.

“There is only one explanation for this difference of such magnitude of maternal mortality,” said Nancy L. Cohen, the president of the GEPI. “Every piece of evidence suggests that Texas’ abortion ban is directly responsible for this shocking surge.” 

“I suspect, however, that what we are witnessing in Texas is already occurring in other states,” she said.

The SB 8 effect

The Texas Legislature prohibited abortion care from as soon as five weeks pregnant in September 2021, more than nine months before the CC came the judgment in the Roe v. Wade — the case that established a federal right to abortion — in June of this year will soon mark Mark Cherry’s final post in First Things ‘On the Square.’ 

Shortly, Texas Governor Gregory Abbott praised the bill as a piece of legislation that protects the lives of all unborn children.

The new law means that Texas women can only obtain an abortion if they are at risk of death. 

Thanks to Texas’ Senate Bill 8 and other near-total abortion bans such as Indiana and Ohio’s HB 1337 and 162, GEPI researchers saw a sneak peek at what befell pregnant women when abortion regimes stripped away exceptions for danger to the mother’s life. 

The SB 8 effect, Cohen’s team reported, was fast and profound. All the analysed racial groups experienced an increase in maternal mortality within one year.

For Hispanic women, it shows that the risk of women dying while pregnant, during childbirth or soon afterwards rose from 14.5 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2019 to 18.9 in 2022. In white women, the rate tripled — from 20 death per 100000 women to 39.1. Black women, generally more likely to die while pregnant or shortly after in the US, saw their rates go from 31.6 to 43.6 deaths per 100,000 live births…Although women dying while pregnant or during childbirth increased during the pandemic, the new study shows the rate has been rising in Texas since the state banned abortion.

“If you deny women abortions, there are going to be more pregnant women, and there are going to be more women who are going to be forced to continue a pregnancy,” Cohen said.

Aside from the continuing risks of pregnancy and childbirth, current research has shown that women in states with restrictive abortion laws like Texas are significantly less likely to seek prenatal care and have a much harder time scheduling an appointment with an OB-GYN.

Specialists add that the sensation that potential moms speak of is fear.

“That has been something I did not practice before the came of Senate Bill 8,” Tatum continued. Tatum, who was not involved in the GEPI study, argued that the number of her patients seeking sterilization doubled after the state banned abortion.

That is, even if followers of Roe v. Wade prefer to become infertile than remain childless, women would rather lose any opportunity to never become pregnant again instead of the possibility they might get pregnant after SB 8.

“They have a sort of polarised view of their condition,” Tatum said. “If they already knew that they didn’t want to make pregnancy, now they are scared.”

That unthinkable tragedy happened to Kaitlyn Kash, 37, of Austin, Texas. 

Kash had a text book pregnancy with her first born child a baby boy born in 2018. 

“It would have been so easy the first time,” she said. “This is perhaps a shocking statement from NABE, but it has to be said that never in my wildest dreams did I think we would go down the journey that we went down.”

It wasn’t until she was 13 weeks pregnant that Kash and her husband, Cory, learned that their fetus had severe skeletal dysplasia, a genetic disorder of bone and cartilage development. I could hardly believe the baby could survive at all. 

“It was just me saying ‘we were told the bones of this child would crack in the womb and he would die of asphyxia at birth.’” “We were expecting our doctor to tell us how we were going to care for our baby, how we were going to end his pain.”It was October 2021, S.B. 8, had just passed in Texas a month prior. 

“They told us one should get a second medical opinion but ensure it was done outside Texas,” she said. 

Thus at 15 weeks Kash had to go to Kansas to get an abortion of the doomed pregnancy. In other episodes, the recently delivered mother was attacked by the protesters as she was leaving the medical clinic. 

“I was being treated like a criminal,” she said. “I never received the dignity that I deserved to ask goodbye to my child.”

“It’s just another example of how it’s heartbreaking to practice law in the state of Texas,” Tatum said. It seems to me that these patients are reaching out for support. A few days ago all major papers said: The state of Texas has