The Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee made the decision at a meeting in September. meetingsaying this would allow the council to review more recent cases of maternal deaths in a timely manner.

Many state committees analyzing deaths of pregnant women, however, operate with a two-year lag, according to At Washington Post. This means the committee would be on schedule to analyze maternal deaths in 2022 and 2023.

Roe deer was overturned in June 2022. In September 2021, Texas implemented a six-week abortion ban.

Although the law allows abortion in cases where the mother’s life is in danger, doctors said the bill’s language was vague and made it difficult for doctors to act quickly to save the life of the mother. mother.

ProPublica reported three cases of mothers who died after doctors failed to properly treat them for miscarriages due to the abortion ban.

The Texas Board of Health does not review maternal deaths due to abortion, but women who miscarry and are denied certain medical procedures by medical professionals because of abortion laws constitute a case study under the committee.

Texas Alliance for Life, an anti-abortion activist group in Texas, called ProPublica’s report that women are being denied life-saving care inaccurate, quoting that there have been 119 medically necessary abortions performed in the state since the law was overturned. Roe deer.

“Texas laws explicitly allow doctors to perform abortions when a mother’s life or health is in danger,” Amy O’Donnell, communications director for the Texas Alliance for Life, said in a statement. “Texas Health and Human Services data proves that doctors perform abortions to save women’s lives when medically necessary. ProPublica tries to place blame where it doesn’t belong.

The number of women who died during pregnancy, labor, or within a year of giving birth increased in Texas in 2020 and 2021. Maternal deaths increased from 17 per 100,000 births in 2019 to 38 per 100,000 births in 2021. Many experts have attributed this increase in maternal deaths to limited access to health care during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19. However, some studies suggest the abortion ban enacted in the second half of 2021 may have played a role.

Jennifer Shuford, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said the committee’s board’s decision to skip 2022 and 2023 didn’t make much sense.

“In 2024, the committee made recommendations based on the findings of maternal deaths that occurred in 2020,” Shuford wrote in a September letter regarding the decision. “I fear this means the committee’s recommendations to policymakers are still not based on the most recent case cohorts available. »

Other states have maternal mortality committees. Idaho, which passed a near-total ban on abortion, disbanded its maternal death committee in 2023. Although it is now reestablished, the committee faces delays in its review of data.

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And last week, Georgia, a state where abortion is banned for six weeks, fired all members of the state’s maternal mortality committee. The decision came after ProPublica obtained confidential information about two maternal deaths in the state.

“Although this disclosure was investigated, the investigation was unable to discover which person(s) disclosed confidential information,” wrote Department of Defense Commissioner Kathleen Toomey. Georgia Public Health, in a letter to the committee in November. “Therefore, with immediate effect, the current MMRC is dissolved and all member seats will be filled through a new application process.”