The Texas State Board of Health, which investigates all maternal deaths, will not investigate cases in 2022 or 2023, immediately after Roe v. Wade is overturned.
The Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Commission made this decision at its September meeting, arguing that it would allow the commission to review more recent maternal death cases in a timely manner.
But many state commissions are two years behind in analyzing maternal deaths, according to the Washington Post. This means the commission remains on schedule to analyze maternal deaths in 2022 and 2023.
The Roe decision was overturned in June 2022. In September 2021, Texas implemented a six-week abortion ban.
The law allows abortions if the mother’s life is in danger, but doctors say the bill’s vague language makes it difficult for doctors to act quickly to save the mother’s life. I am doing it.
ProPublica reported three cases in which mothers died because doctors failed to properly treat miscarriages due to the abortion ban.
Although the Texas Board of Health does not investigate maternal deaths due to abortion, women who miscarry and are denied certain medical procedures by medical professionals under abortion laws are cases within the commission’s scope. It is a study.
The Texas Alliance for Life, an anti-abortion activist group in Texas, says there have been 119 medically necessary abortions in the state since Roe’s ouster, in which women were denied life-saving treatment. He claimed that ProPublica’s report that he was there was inaccurate.
“Texas law clearly allows physicians to perform abortions if the mother’s life or health is at risk,” Amy O’Donnell, communications director for the Texas Alliance for Life, said in a statement. Ta. “Texas Department of Health and Human Services data proves that doctors provide abortions to save women’s lives when medically necessary. ProPublica places the blame where it is not theirs. trying to impose.”
In Texas, the number of women who died during pregnancy, labor, or in the year after giving birth increased in 2020 and 2021. Maternal deaths increased from 17 per 100,000 live births in 2019 to 38 per 100,000 live births in 2021. Many expert researchers believe that this sharp increase in maternal deaths is due to limited access to healthcare during the coronavirus pandemic. However, some research suggests that abortion bans enacted in late 2021 may have had an impact.
Texas Department of State Health Services Secretary Jennifer Shuford said the board’s decision to skip 2022 and 2023 doesn’t make much sense.
“In 2024, the committee made recommendations based on its findings of maternal deaths that occurred in 2020,” Shuford wrote about the decision in a September letter. “We are concerned that this means the committee’s recommendations to policymakers are not yet based on the most recent case cohort available.”
Other states also have maternal mortality commissions. Idaho, which passed a near-total abortion ban, disbanded its Maternal Death Commission in 2023. Although it has now been reinstated, the commission faces delays in reviewing the data.
Click here to read the full Washington Examiner article
And last week, Georgia, a state with a six-week abortion ban, fired all members of the state’s maternal mortality commission. The decision came after ProPublica received confidential information about two maternal deaths in the state.
Kathleen Toomey, director of the Georgia Department of Public Health, wrote in a letter to the commission in November that “this disclosure was investigated, but the investigation does not identify which individuals disclosed the confidential information. “I was unable to clarify,” he wrote. “Therefore, the current MMRC will be dissolved with immediate effect and all member seats will be filled through a new application process.”
