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Members of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability have reached out to Texas’ maternal mortality committee, requesting a briefing on the contentious choice to exclude the review of pregnancy and childbirth-related deaths occurring in the first two years following the state’s implementation of strict abortion restrictions.
In September, the maternal mortality committee made an announcement stating that it would skip reviewing deaths from 2022 and 2023, and instead focus on the year 2024. Dr. Carla Ortique, the committee chair and an OB/GYN from Houston, defended this decision during a recent meeting, emphasizing the need for more up-to-date recommendations to address the issue of reducing maternal deaths.
U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat from the Dallas area, along with three other members of the House Oversight Committee, is raising concerns about whether this decision was influenced by the impact it could have on reproductive care in Texas.
The Texas Department of State Health Services received a letter on Thursday morning expressing concern about its disregard for pregnancy-related deaths. The letter emphasized that such negligence contradicts the department’s mission of eliminating preventable maternal deaths in Texas.
Crockett, along with Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, Rep. Summer Lee, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts, all signed the letter.
The state health agency has been requested to provide a briefing by Jan. 2. However, there has been no immediate response from a spokesperson for the agency regarding this request.
The letter highlights that Texas, being the pioneer and largest state to enforce an abortion ban, should prioritize examining the occurrences of maternal deaths during that time frame. It emphasizes the importance of sharing these findings with the Centers for Disease Control and other states.
Last year, Texas legislators allocated funds to establish a new system for tracking maternal deaths. The aim was to end the state’s reliance on national data sharing. However, this change has raised concerns among committee members, including Ortique, regarding its potential impact on data collection in Texas and across the country.
The Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee investigates maternal deaths in order to gain a deeper understanding of the factors contributing to the high number of women who are either dying or experiencing severe complications during pregnancy and childbirth in Texas. Comprising 23 members, the committee also provides recommendations in its biennial report to enhance outcomes in this regard.
The latest report, published in September, revealed a troubling trend of increased maternal deaths in 2020 and 2021, undoing the progress made in the previous two years. Disturbingly, this negative trend was observed across all demographic groups, with the exception of white women. It is particularly concerning that black women continue to bear a disproportionate burden of maternal mortality.
Researchers and advocates in the field of reproductive health care have expressed concerns about the potential rise in maternal mortality due to the implementation of new abortion restrictions. While the Texas law permits doctors to perform abortions in cases where the life of the pregnant patient is at risk, the strict penalties and uncertainties surrounding the legislation have created a climate of fear and confusion. As a result, some individuals have been hesitant to seek or have been denied necessary medical care. Disturbingly, there have been numerous accounts of women having to leave the state in order to access life-saving treatments. In fact, ProPublica has shed light on the tragic deaths of three pregnant Texans since these laws were put into effect.
All the members of Georgia’s maternal mortality review committee were removed from their roles after the news organization reported on two similar deaths in the state.
At a recent committee meeting, advocates, researchers, doctors, and pregnant women expressed their concerns as Texas’ committee made the decision to skip some years in order to provide more timely recommendations. This move has raised alarm bells among these groups.
Nakeenya Wilson, a former member of the committee, expressed her concerns about the decision to skip two crucial years in the country’s history of reproductive health. She emphasized the importance of staying up-to-date and contemporary in addressing this issue. Wilson stated, “I know that we’ve always talked about how we want to be as contemporary as possible. What I am concerned about is the fact that the two years that we were skipping are the most crucial years of reproductive health in this country’s history.”
Crockett accused Texas of attempting to conceal the truth about deaths linked to the abortion ban in a statement.
“Texas Republicans are well aware that the stories of these women and the shattered families they leave behind have nothing to do with being ‘pro-life’,” she asserted. “As House Oversight Democrats, my colleagues and I will not permit Texas Republicans to conceal the repercussions of this lethal law… The residents of Texas deserve to know the truth.”
