A “Striking” Trend: After Texas Banned Abortion, More Women Nearly Bled to Death During Miscarriage

A new ProPublica data analysis adds to the mounting evidence that abortion bans have made the common experience of first-trimester miscarriage far more dangerous.

by Kavitha Surana, Lizzie Presser and Andrea Suozzo
July 1, 2025

Before states banned abortion, one of the gravest outcomes of early miscarriage could easily be avoided: Doctors could offer a dilation and curettage procedure, which quickly empties the uterus and allows it to close, protecting against a life-threatening hemorrhage.

But because the procedures, known as D&Cs, are also used to end pregnancies, they have gotten tangled up in state legislation that restricts abortion. Reports now abound of doctors hesitating to provide them and women who are bleeding heavily being discharged from emergency rooms without care, only to return in such dire condition that they need blood transfusions to survive. As ProPublica reported last year, one woman died of hemorrhage after 10 hours in a Houston hospital that didn’t perform the procedure.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-abortion-ban-miscarriage-blood-transfusions

A Third Woman Died Under Texas’ Abortion Ban. Doctors Are Avoiding D&Cs and Reaching for Riskier Miscarriage Treatments.

Thirty-five-year-old Porsha Ngumezi’s case raises questions about how abortion bans are pressuring doctors to avoid standard care even in straightforward miscarriages.

by Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana
Nov. 25, 2024

Wrapping his wife in a blanket as she mourned the loss of her pregnancy at 11 weeks, Hope Ngumezi wondered why no obstetrician was coming to see her.

Over the course of six hours on June 11, 2023, Porsha Ngumezi had bled so much in the emergency department at Houston Methodist Sugar Land that she’d needed two transfusions. She was anxious to get home to her young sons, but, according to a nurse’s notes, she was still “passing large clots the size of grapefruit.”

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/porsha-ngumezi-miscarriage-death-texas-abortion-ban

USA – Maternal Deaths Are Expected to Rise Under Abortion Bans, but the Increase May Be Hard to Measure

It’s clear that abortion bans can make pregnancy more dangerous, but experts say it may take years for maternal mortality data to reveal the toll.

by Kavitha Surana
July 27, 2023

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, doctors have warned that limiting abortion care will make pregnancy more dangerous in a country that already has the highest maternal mortality rate among industrialized nations.

The case of Mylissa Farmer, a Missouri woman, is one example. Last August, her water broke less than 18 weeks into her pregnancy, when her fetus was not viable. She was at risk for developing a life-threatening infection if she continued the pregnancy. Yet during three separate visits to emergency rooms, she was denied abortion care because her fetus still had a heartbeat. Doctors specifically cited the state’s new abortion law in her medical records and said they could not intervene until her condition worsened. She eventually traveled to Illinois for care.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/tracking-maternal-deaths-under-abortion-bans

USA – How anti-abortion laws impact the Black community

With some of the highest maternal death rates in the nation, Black pregnant people face extreme impacts on their health, particularly those in states with restrictive abortion bans.

By Rebekah Sager
April 17, 2023

When the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization last June, overturning Roe v. Wade and ending federal constitutional affirmation of the right to abortion, medical experts and pro-abortion activists working in the Black maternal health community say, they knew the result could be dire.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black pregnant people are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white pregnant people. And Black infants are nearly four times as likely to die during birth as white infants, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health reports.

Continued: https://americanindependent.com/anti-abortion-laws-black-pregnancy-mifepristone-supreme-court-maternal-infant-death-health-care/