Some Republican-led states that passed near-total abortion bans have mysteriously stopped collecting statistics on maternal mortality over the last couple of years — and some observers suspect it's not a coincidence, wrote Susan Rinkunas for MSNBC.
This comes as reports begin to trickle in of cases of women who have died after being denied abortion care in dangerous pregnancies, despite every state with an abortion ban ostensibly having exceptions for the life of the mother — women of color being the bulk of these cases.
The latest found by ProPublica was Porsha Ngumenzi, a Texas woman who died after miscarrying at 11 weeks because her hospital refused to dilate and evacuate her uterus — a procedure used to treat miscarriages but which is also almost entirely banned in the state due to its use in abortions. Instead, she was given medication to try to stop her bleeding which proved ineffective.
Despite this, the Texas Maternal Mortality Review Committee has stated it will not examine deaths in 2022 and 2023 — when abortion became illegal in the state — citing a backlog of cases from previous years to review.
"An analysis published in September by the Gender Equity Policy Institute found that, from 2019 to 2022, the rate of maternal deaths in Texas increased by 56%, compared with 11% nationwide," wrote Rinkunas. "But rather than investigate, the state is essentially admitting that the bodies are piling up faster than the state can address them."
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Investigative reporters have "found at least five women who’ve died under abortion bans: three in Texas and two in Georgia," noted Rinkunas. "After the outlet reported that Georgia’s MMRC had determined the two deaths were preventable, state officials responded by firing all of its 32 members. The commissioner of Georgia’s Public Health Department wrote in a letter to members that because the department wasn’t able to figure out who shared confidential information with ProPublica, it was dismissing the whole committee and would seek applications for replacements ... it seems leaks to the media are more important than urgent investigations of these women’s deaths."
The issue, she continued, is that the whole point of these committees is to identify problems in medical care for expectant mothers — and these moves create the impression that states like Texas and Georgia would rather suppress those efforts than risk the data showing that abortion bans are killing people.
"Conservatives are trying to convince people that they live in an unreality where these tragic deaths are the fault not of politicians who banned medical care, but rather of doctors who face imprisonment, huge fines and loss of their licenses," wrote Rinkunas.
Because of the delays these states have created in the review process, said Rinkunas, "it could be years until anyone knows the true toll of these laws. If and when more deaths are reported, we can expect anti-abortion activists and lawmakers to blame anyone but themselves."
