It’s unnecessarily tough to be a woman in Texas.
In the least insured state in the union, where it’s harder to see a medical provider than anywhere else in America, women must also contend with the most extreme abortion ban in the country. Which means that too many Texas women are unable to make their own healthcare decisions about their own bodies, with dire consequences for far too many.
It also exacerbates an already tragic level of maternal mortality, especially for Black women, in Texas.
A Texas maternal death report released last month showed a sharp increase in complications from pregnancy and childbirth between 2018 and 2020. The report, the release of which was delayed until after the November election, shows that Texas has one of the highest levels of maternal mortality in the developed world (with Black women twice as likely to die as white women). As The Texas Tribune reported, in 2019 alone at least 118 women died, leaving nearly 200 children without a mother. And that was “just a portion of the death toll from pregnancy and childbirth in Texas” that year.
Importantly, in 90% of the cases reviewed by the state’s Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee, there was a chance to save the woman’s life. That supports what common sense and the stories of so many Texas women have already told us: these women didn’t have to die.
My hope is that this report provides some urgency for members of the legislature to take action and save lives. The self declared “pro-life” majority have proven themselves to be, at best, “pro-birth.” Really, they’ve contributed to the deaths of too many innocent Texans.
Whether it’s the kids killed in Texas schools (we lead the nation in school shootings), the obscenely dysfunctional foster care system (where more than 100 children have lost their lives since 2020), the criminally weak healthcare system (more kids die of diabetes in Texas than any other state) or the rickety electricity grid (which claimed the lives of more than 700 Texans two years ago) — it’s clear that those who relish running on the rhetoric of saving lives from all sorts of boogeymen (be they immigrants or reproductive healthcare providers) have failed abjectly in actually doing anything to protect the lives of their most vulnerable constituents. In so many cases they have, through misguided legislation and willful neglect, made their deaths far more likely.
And it’s not as though solutions are expensive or politically unattainable. Reopening access to reproductive healthcare, for example, will definitely save lives. When Texas closes access to abortion, it is also effectively foreclosing access to cervical cancer screenings, family planning providers or just any kind of medical provider — someone who could, for example, diagnose and treat pre-eclampsia, one of the leading causes of maternal mortality among Black women — in some of the most underserved parts of our state. Restoring access will save lives.
In addition, we are seeing other parts of the country successfully meet the challenge of Black maternal mortality through innovative new programs. A recent New York Times article highlights a program in St. Louis that is providing access to doulas (non-medical professionals who help women navigate their pregnancies, from pain management to hospital bureaucracies). The New York Times reports that continuous guidance from doulas has been shown to be “one of the most effective interventions in easing pregnancy.” We can implement these kinds of best practices in Texas.
Texas state Rep. Shawn Thierry of Houston has authored and introduced a number of bills this session that would give Texas women a fighting chance to survive — those 90% of preventable deaths highlighted in the recently released maternal mortality report.
From mandating a maternal mortality and morbidity data registry to requiring cultural competency education for physicians, Thierry is making sure that we have the facts and the medical education to provide better outcomes. And she’s also working to put best practices, like the doula program in St. Louis, into use here in Texas. Her House Bill 465 would create a pilot program to cover doula services through Medicaid.
But the only way to get that done is for the legislature to act. And the best way to ensure that they do is for us to reach out to those who represent us.
If you live in Texas, this link will help you find your state representative and state senator and get in touch with them.
Keep the faith,
Beto