The number of women in Texas who died while pregnant, during childbirth or shortly after giving birth rose sharply after the state’s 2021 ban on abortion care — far outpacing slower growth. maternal mortality by countryfinds a new study of federal public health data.
From 2019 to 2022, Texas’ maternal mortality rate increased 56%, compared to just 11% nationally during the same period, according to an analysis by the Gender Equality Policy Institute. The nonprofit research group examined publicly available reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and shared the analysis exclusively with NBC News.
“There is only one explanation for this staggering difference in maternal mortality,” said Nancy L. Cohen, president of GEPI. “All studies point to the Texas abortion ban as the primary reason for this alarming increase.”
“Texas, I’m afraid, is a harbinger of what will happen in other states,” he said.
SB 8 effect
In June 2022, the Texas Legislature passed the US Supreme Court’s Roe v. In September 2021, nearly a year before overturning the federal abortion-rights-protecting case Wade v.
At that time, the governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott welcomed the bill As a measure that “ensures the life of every unborn child.”
Texas law now bans all abortions other than saving the mother’s life.
The passage of Texas Senate Bill 8 gave GEPI researchers an early look at how near-abortion bans, including life-threatening situations, affect the health and safety of pregnant women.
The SB 8 effect, Cohen’s team found, was swift and sharp. Maternal mortality increased in all racial groups studied within one year.
Among Hispanic women, the rate of women who died during pregnancy, childbirth, or shortly after increased from 14.5% in 2019 to 18.9% in 2022. Among white women, the rates nearly doubled — from 20% to 39.1%. Black women, historically more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or soon after, saw their rates jump from 31.6% to 43.6%.
While maternal deaths have increased overall during the pandemic, the number of women dying during pregnancy or childbirth has risen consistently in Texas since the state’s abortion ban, according to the Gender Equality Policy Institute.
“If you deny women abortions, more women will get pregnant and more women will be forced to carry their pregnancies to term,” Cohen said.
Beyond the immediate dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, there is growing evidence that women living in states with strict abortion laws, such as Texas, are more likely to leave. without prenatal care and less likely to find an appointment with an OB-GYN.
Doctors say that there is a feeling of fear among those who want to become mothers.
“The fear is something I’ve never seen in practice until Senate Bill 8,” he said. Tatum, who was not involved in the GEPI study, said requests for sterilization procedures among her patients have doubled since the state’s abortion ban.
That is, women would rather lose the ability to ever have children than have the chance to get pregnant after SB 8.
“Patients feel cornered,” Tatum said. “If they knew they didn’t want to get pregnant anymore, now they’re scared.”
Tatum said she meets many women in their 30s and 40s who want to have children, but worry that they won’t be able to terminate the pregnancy if it turns out the baby won’t be healthy. . “‘What if I end up with a genetically abnormal fetus?’ Tatum said his patients asked him. They worry that their options are limited, he said.
“They behaved like criminals”
This unimaginable tragedy happened to 37-year-old Caitlin Cash from Austin, Texas.
Kash had a textbook pregnancy with her first child, a healthy little boy, born in 2018.
“It was so easy the first time,” he said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think we’d end up on the journey we did.”
When she became pregnant again, in Kash’s second trimester, at 13 weeks, she and her husband Corey discovered that the fetus had severe skeletal dysplasia, a rare genetic disorder that affects bone and cartilage growth. The child’s chances of survival were slim.
“We were told that her bones would break in the womb and she would suffocate at birth,” Kash said. “We were waiting for our doctor to tell us how to take care of our baby, how to end his pain.”
It was October 2021, just one month after Texas passed SB 8 abortion law.
“We were told we should get a second opinion, but make sure it’s outside of Texas,” he said.
At 15 weeks, Kash had to travel to Kansas to terminate her pregnancy. Protesters taunted the grieving mother outside the medical clinic.
“I was treated like a criminal,” he said. “I did not see the dignity I deserved to say goodbye to my child.”
“It’s just another example of how heartwarming it is to coach in the state of Texas,” Tatum said. “These patients are asking for help. “The state of Texas has failed women.”