Pregnant people living in states with abortion bans are almost twice as likely to die during pregnancy or soon after giving birth, a report released Wednesday found. The risk is greatest for Black women in states with bans, who are 3.3 times more likely to die than White women in those same states.
The Gender Equity Policy Institute, a nonprofit research and policy organization that put out the report, found that pregnancy-related death rates have increased in states with abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was overturned; meanwhile, death rates have declined in states that protect abortion access. The report found that pregnant Black women, White women and Latinas are all at greater risk of death in states with abortion bans than they would be if they lived in states that protect abortion rights.
“There are two Americas for reproductive-aged women and people who can become pregnant in the United States,” said Nancy Cohen, founder of the Gender Equity Policy Institute. “One America, where you’re at serious risk of major health complications or death if you become pregnant, and one where you’re most likely to have a positive birth experience, a healthy pregnancy and a healthy child.”
Researchers compared pregnancy-related deaths in states where abortion is almost completely banned and where it is protected. (The World Health Organization defines pregnancy-related deaths as ones experienced while pregnant or within 42 days of the pregnancy ending, and only if the death was “from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management.”) The report relies on data from the federal government’s National Vital Statistics Section, analyzing pregnancy-related deaths from 2019 through 2023. The data focused on people who identified as “mother” and did not specifically study pregnancy-related deaths for transgender and nonbinary people.
[…]
In Texas, the largest state to ban abortion, the trend is most pronounced: In 2022, the first full year Texas had outlawed most abortions, pregnancy-related deaths went up by 56 percent, the report found — a much larger jump than the national increase of 11 percent. In states with abortion protections, the report found pregnancy-related deaths declined by 21 percent since the end of Roe.
The impact in Texas was most visible among White women, who typically have far lower rates of pregnancy-related deaths — but who, in 2022, saw a 95 percent increase in deaths. In 2023, the report found, White women and Latinas in Texas were 1.7 times more likely to die because of their pregnancy compared to their peers in states with laws protecting abortion rights. This is especially stark when compared to pregnant people in California, which has the lowest rate of pregnancy-related death: Latinas in Texas were three times more likely to die, and White women were twice as likely.
“The spike in White maternal mortality in Texas is a canary in the coal mine, because White women typically have far lower rates of maternal mortality,” Cohen said. “We know from some of the reporting of individual cases in Texas that these are women with insurance, they’re middle class. And what it suggests is the breadth of the potential impact of abortion bans.”
Still, giving birth in Texas remains most perilous for Black women — who in 2023 were 2.5 times more likely to die because of pregnancy compared to White women in the state. Nationally, Black women in states with abortion bans are at the greatest risk of pregnancy-related death; the analysis found that among Black women, 60.9 die for every 100,000 live births, compared to 18.2 White women and 18.2 Latinas.
See here for the report. We have discused this subject before. This data is likely to be harder to come by now because of DOGEbag antics and the Trump administration’s hostility to science, medicine, and of course women. You can make the truth harder to find, but you can’t erase it.
On a related note:
A bill seeking to clarify Texas’ abortion laws has passed out of a Senate committee, with amendments attached that aim to appease criticism from the left and the right.
Texas law bans abortion except to save the life of the pregnant patient, with penalties of up to life in prison, $100,000 fines and loss of licensure. But the law is confusing and vague, doctors and hospitals say, forcing them to delay or deny medically necessary abortions for fear of triggering the strict penalties.
Senate Bill 31 is intended to clarify when doctors can legally intervene. It aligns language between the state’s three abortion bans, removes any requirement that a medical crisis be imminent before a doctor can act, and requires doctors and lawyers to undergo training on the laws.
The original bill was closely negotiated between anti-abortion groups and medical associations, but in the weeks since it was introduced, abortion advocates and conservative groups have pushed for changes to the language of the legislation.
One set of amendments addresses concerns about whether the clarifying bill would change the legal status of the state’s pre-Roe abortion statutes. These laws, passed in the 1800s, allow for criminal charges to be brought against someone who has an abortion, as well as anyone who “furnishes the means” for an abortion.
Some conservative lawmakers have argued these statutes are in effect and have threatened to prosecute abortion funds, nonprofit groups that help pay for Texans to get abortions out-of-state, under this statute, although a federal judge has ruled the law is likely “repealed by implication,” and their work is likely protected.
Abortion funds and other advocates worried that amending the pre-Roe statutes in this clarifying bill would serve to revive them. The amended version of the bill says the legislation is neutral on the question of whether the pre-Roe statutes are in effect, while legal battles play out to resolve that question.
The bill is written “solely to clarify statutory text and to ensure medical care may be provided to a pregnant woman in a medical emergency … without prejudice to, or resolution of, any question concerning any provision within” the pre-Roe statutes, the committee substitute says.
See here for the background. I don’t know enough yet to say whether the original concerns were adequately addressed or not. For obvious reasons, I don’t trust the bill’s author, and while the doctors’ concerns are very real, they’re not the same as the abortion rights advocates’ concerns. The Current covers this angle.
During a Tuesday press conference, members of the group Free & Just, said the Republican lawmakers behind the proposal agreed to amend it so it couldn’t be used to target pregnant people for criminal prosecution. The organization is made up of plaintiffs in the Zurawski v. Texas case, in which women who experienced severe pregnancy complications sued Texas to seek clarification on when abortions are permissible under state law.
“We are cautiously optimistic that once we see the language, and that hopefully when it passes, that this is a step in the right direction,” Texas abortion advocate Kaitlyn Kash said during a Tuesday press conference in Austin. “We still have a long way to go to ensure that what happened to me and my family and my friends and their families does not continue to happen.”
Kash, who was forced to carry her dead fetus for weeks as a result of the Texas abortion ban, is one of dozens of women who argue they have been denied necessary medical care due to the law.
[…]
After lobbying lawmakers Tuesday, Kash and other plaintiffs told reporters their concerns didn’t fall upon deaf ears — at least, not this time. She credited media coverage of the effects of the Texas abortion ban on their lobbying success.
“To be quite honest, people don’t want to see women dying, and so unfortunately, it took stories like Amanda [Zurawski’s] and the women that passed away to have an impact,” she added.
Zurawski, who attended Tuesday’s press conference, went into septic shock twice and was left with a permanently closed fallopian tube after doctors refused to perform an abortion on her fetus. The fetus suffered a preterm pre-labor rupture of membranes, but because it had a detectable heartbeat, physicians feared being criminally prosecuted.
“I am encouraged today,” Zurawski said. “When I was fighting for my life in the hospital for three days, I was terrified. My family was terrified, and to think that a family going through what we went through would also have to fear going to jail on top of potentially losing their child, their wife, their daughter is absolutely terrifying.”
That helps, but I’d still like to hear from more activists, including the abortion funds. Sorry, I’m just way too cynical here. Reform Austin and the Chron have more.
Allowing abortion kills an innocent baby every time so id say it’s a wash. But not really considering 50K babies were aborted yearly in Texas vs 50 pregnancy related deaths. But I forget that the babies have no value while in the womb the 50 women are deemed more valuable each time even though none have the innocence of a newborn or developing in the womb child.