Bans Kill.
Read to learn how the overturn of Roe v. Wade has already killed women across the United States.
Since the Dobbs decision overturned the precedent set by Roe v. Wade in 2022, 14 states have banned abortion across the United States, and one in seven women in states with abortion bans say they or someone they know has had trouble accessing an abortion.
While there are so-called “exceptions” to these laws, providers across the country say that the language is vague, confusing, and difficult to apply when patients need care.
In Georgia and Texas, at least five women have died as a result of these bans and the delays in care they cause.
The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and strip away reproductive freedom from millions of people across the country was driven by a shift in the Supreme Court’s makeup, rounded out by Donald Trump’s appointment of three staunchly conservative justices during his first term. That shift left the Roe precedent vulnerable when the question came before the Court again and paved the way for it to be overturned.
President Trump has repeatedly taken credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade and appointing the justices that were responsible for that decision.
TEXAS STATE LAW
Abortion is completely banned in Texas, a state that imposes more restrictions on abortion than any other in the country. After the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, the state’s “trigger law” went into effect, prohibiting abortion at all stages of pregnancy and threatening imprisonment and fines for patients and providers. Prior to the implementation of the state’s total abortion ban, Texans were already grappling with S.B. 8, also known as the “vigilante ban,” signed into law by Republican Governor Greg Abbott in 2021. The law effectively banned abortion at 6 weeks of pregnancy and incentivized Texans, including anti-abortion activists, to turn in their fellow citizens—neighbors, family members and others—who helped their loved ones access abortion care.
Today, abortion is completely banned in Texas, except where there is a life threatening physical condition, and the state has constructed a network of laws that make it nearly impossible to both access as well as provide adequate abortion and reproductive health care in the state. The fear and confusion that the state’s abortion ban has sown has led doctors to delay, and in some cases deny, patients the essential abortion care they need which has led to at least three deaths in the state that we know of thus far.
Women who have died under Texas’ abortion ban:
died in June 2023 after experiencing a miscarriage in Texas, where nearly all abortions are banned. Ten weeks into her pregnancy, Ngumezi started to bleed and went to Houston Methodist Sugar Land, where she continued to bleed for several hours. Rather than being offered a D&C, which is a common procedure that can be used for miscarriages and abortion to clear tissue from the uterus, a doctor gave Ngumezi misoprostol which is frequently used in miscarriages and abortions, but can be dangerous to give to women who are already bleeding heavily. Ngumezi eventually started complaining of chest pain, but was not provided any additional tests or treatments. Several hours after arriving at the hospital, her heart stopped. Doctors who reviewed Ngumezi’s case said that she should have been offered a D&C, but some doctors in states with strict abortion bans like Texas have become hesitant to offer D&Cs because they are afraid of being punished for violating abortion bans – even in situations where women’s pregnancies have ended, as in Ngumezi’s case. [ProPublica]
was a pregnant teenager from Texas who died after three separate visits to an emergency room in an attempt to get care. The morning of her baby shower, she had a headache, nausea, and began vomiting. She went to the hospital and was only diagnosed with strep throat upon her first visit. The hospital did not investigate her sharp abdominal cramps. She went to two different emergency rooms within 12 hours in October 2023, each time returning home feeling worse than before. Medical records indicate Crain tested positive for sepsis, a potentially life-threatening condition, on her second visit. But doctors still cleared her to leave after apparently confirming that her six-month-old fetus still had a heartbeat, despite no signs that her sepsis was improving. On her third trip to the hospital, Crain was finally moved to intensive care after an obstetrician insisted on two ultrasounds to “confirm fetal demise.” She died hours later after suffering organ failure because doctors failed to treat her adequately due to fear and confusion around Texas's arcane abortion ban. [ProPublica | The Guardian]
died after doctors delayed treating her miscarriage for 40 hours. Barnica went to the hospital with cramps when she was just over 17 weeks pregnant on 2 September 2021, the day after the Texas six-week abortion ban took effect. When her bleeding worsened the following day, Barnica returned to the hospital, where a doctor concluded that a miscarriage was “in progress”. Another soon concluded that a miscarriage was “inevitable.” Normally, in cases like Barnica’s doctors will offer medication to speed up labor or perform a procedure to empty the uterus. But because her fetus still had a heartbeat, doctors could not intervene unless a “medical emergency” – a term that was not defined in the law – developed. About 40 hours after Barnica’s second arrival at the hospital, doctors stopped being able to detect a fetal heartbeat. A doctor expedited her labor using medications and delivered Barnica’s fetus. But after she returned home, Barnica’s bleeding continued and worsened and within days, she was back at the hospital, where she died of sepsis involving “products of conception.” [The Guardian]
GEORGIA STATE LAW
Georgia’s abortion ban prohibits abortions from the time cardiac activity is detected in an embryo – generally at about six weeks which is before many people know they are pregnant. The ban, which has faced numerous legal challenges since it went into effect two years ago, was recently reinstated by the Supreme Court of Georgia and will remain in effect indefinitely while the state’s appeal proceeds in the state supreme court.
Since the ban went into effect, Georgians have been stripped of their freedom to make decisions about their reproductive healthcare, which has forced patients into life-threatening situations. Last year, Georgia’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee determined that the deaths of two black women in 2022 - Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller – were preventable but that the patients were not able to access the urgent medical care they needed due to confusion and fear of criminal penalties for violating the state’s abortion ban.
Women who have died under Georgia’s abortion ban:
experienced a rare complication after taking medication abortion pills. She had not expelled all of the fetal tissue from her body and was in need of a dilation and curettage (D&C) to clear the remaining fetal tissue from her uterus. Georgia’s abortion ban makes it a felony to perform this procedure after six weeks, punishable by up to 10 years of prison time for the provider. When Thurman sought medical help at the hospital, she waited 20 hours before doctors took her for surgery, at which point it was too late and her heart stopped on the operating table. According to Georgia’s maternal mortality review committee, Thurman’s death was “preventable” and that the hospital’s delay in providing the D&C due to state law “had a large impact on her fatal outcome.” [ProPublica]
was warned by doctors that another pregnancy could kill her. When she became unintentionally pregnant in 2022, she made the decision to try and navigate accessing an abortion on her own due to the state’s strict abortion ban. She purchased medication abortion pills online and, after taking them, experienced a complication where she did not expel all of the fetal tissue and needed a dilation and curettage (D&C) to complete the procedure. She was found unresponsive at home after her family observed her suffering for days. Miller’s family said she never visited a doctor “due to the current legislation on pregnancies and abortions” in the state. When a state committee or experts in maternal health reviewed her case, they decided it was “preventable” and blamed the state’s abortion ban. [ProPublica]