Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared.

ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.

by Lizzie Presser, Andrea Suozzo, Sophie Chou and Kavitha Surana
Feb. 20, 2025

Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion in 2021, ProPublica found in a first-of-its-kind data analysis.

The rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester, ProPublica found.

The surge in this life-threatening condition, caused by infection, was most pronounced for patients whose fetus may still have had a heartbeat when they arrived at the hospital.

https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-abortion-ban-sepsis-maternal-mortality-analysis

A Pregnant Teenager Died After Trying to Get Care in Three Visits to Texas Emergency Rooms

It took three ER visits and 20 hours before a hospital admitted Nevaeh Crain, 18, as her condition worsened. Doctors insisted on two ultrasounds to confirm “fetal demise.” She’s one of at least two Texas women who died under the state’s abortion ban.

by Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana
Nov. 1, 2024

Candace Fails screamed for someone in the Texas hospital to help her pregnant daughter. “Do something,” she pleaded, on the morning of Oct. 29, 2023.

Nevaeh Crain was crying in pain, too weak to walk, blood staining her thighs. Feverish and vomiting the day of her baby shower, the 18-year-old had gone to two different emergency rooms within 12 hours, returning home each time worse than before.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/nevaeh-crain-death-texas-abortion-ban-emtala

She wanted an abortion. Her only option was driving to Mexico.

An excerpt from 'Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in a Post-Roe America'

May 26, 2024
Shefali Luthra

This article, an excerpt from “Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in a Post-Roe America,” was originally published by The 19th.

Before Roe v. Wade fell, McAllen had been home to the last abortion clinic in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, and Becky, a lifelong Texan and young college student, knew the place by sight. It was where the other girls at school used to go whenever they needed help, just by city hall, next to a church, and a short drive from an H-E-B supermarket. It was easy to find. There was a mural on the outside of brightly painted women standing in a field, holding what looked like balls of light, gazing up at the sun. The words hovered above them: “dignity.” “empowerment.”

Few places were harder hit by Roe’s fall than the Rio Grande Valley, which lies south of San Antonio and abuts the state’s border with Mexico. Even before 2021, reproductive health care in the region had been difficult to come by — and abortion, while technically available, was only barely so in practice.

Continued: https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/nationworld/report/052624_abortion_burdens/she-wanted-abortion-her-only-option-was-driving-mexico/

26.05.2024

self-managed abortion

Shefali Luthra

South Texans for Reproductive Justice

traveling to Mexico for abortion

Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in a Post-Roe America

Whole Woman’s Health

To Get Abortion Training, Some Medical Students Must Leave Their States — and Come to California

Sydney Johnson
Jun 9, 2023

Kelly Mamelson has spent most of her life in Florida, including the last two years as a medical resident specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. But because of the state’s attempts to restrict abortion care, she’ll have to travel out of state to complete her training as an OB-GYN doctor. Like many in her position, she’s not planning to practice in Florida once she finishes — but hasn’t ruled out returning to her home state altogether.

“We feel we are abandoning our patients, but we feel we have no option other than to go out of state to get this training,” Mamelson said Friday at a panel discussion hosted by UCSF’s Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health.

Continued: https://www.kqed.org/news/11952673/to-get-abortion-training-some-medical-students-must-leave-their-states-and-come-to-california

Texas – Abortion restrictions threaten care for pregnant patients, providers say

Women’s health care providers are holding back when counseling pregnant patients about treatment options, doctors report pharmacists are hesitant to distribute some prescriptions, and OB-GYN training is diminishing for Texas medical school students.

BY SNEHA DEY AND KAREN BROOKS HARPER ,Texas Tribune
MAY 24, 2022

Teresa Kim Pecinovsky is terrified she will have a miscarriage.

The 38-year-old Houston mother of two children is in the second trimester of a high-risk pregnancy, but uncertainty about Texas abortion laws means that she — and her gynecologist — are worried about her access to proper medical care if that nightmare were to come true.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/24/texas-abortion-law-pregnancy-care/