For over a year, we’ve been writing about pregnant women who have died in states that banned abortion after Roe v. Wade was overturned. And we’ve been trying to better understand: Who are the women who are most likely to suffer because of these new laws?
Many of the early cases we uncovered involved fast-moving emergencies. While women were miscarrying, they needed procedures to quickly empty their uterus, and, tragically, they didn’t get them in time.
Yet we know that dangerous miscarriages like these are relatively rare events. What are far more common, experts have told us, are high-risk pregnancies, often on account of underlying health issues. Each year, hundreds of thousands of women enter pregnancy with chronic conditions that put them at an elevated risk of long-term complications and, in some cases, death. For those who live in states that have banned abortion, their options are now severely limited.
Our reporting has found that abortion bans generally don’t include exceptions that cover these kinds of health concerns — or if they do, doctors aren’t using them.
Instead, the exceptions are for the “life of the mother.” In practice, this often means doctors won’t act without strong evidence that their patients are very likely to die. Where there have been efforts to create broader health exceptions to cover a range of medical risks women can face in pregnancy, anti-abortion activists have fought against them. They argue that such exceptions are too permissive and could allow nearly anyone to get an abortion. Testifying at the Idaho state Capitol, one suggested that patients with headaches would be able to get abortions.
In recent months, we’ve reported on two recent cases that help illustrate how this narrow view of women’s health issues has life-or-death stakes.
Tierra Walker was a 37-year-old dental assistant and mother in Texas who found out she was unexpectedly pregnant in the fall of 2024. Hospitalized with uncontrolled blood pressure, she entered pregnancy sick and kept getting sicker. As she battled seizures and developed a dangerous blood clot, she became increasingly afraid for her health. Her blood pressure remained dangerously high, which doctors kept noting. She didn’t want to risk the possibility of leaving her 14-year-old son without his mother, her family told ProPublica.
Walker knew abortion was illegal in Texas, but like many people, she thought that hospitals could make exceptions for patients like her, whose health was clearly on the line.
Instead, her family said, despite Walker repeatedly asking if she should end the pregnancy to protect her health, none of her doctors counseled her on the option — or the health benefits — of a termination. More than 90 doctors were involved in her care, according to medical records.
On his 15th birthday, Walker’s son found her draped over her bed. At 20 weeks pregnant, she had died of preeclampsia, a dangerous pregnancy-related blood pressure disorder.
We reviewed her medical records with more than a dozen OB-GYNs across the country, who said Walker’s death was preventable. They described her condition as a “ticking time bomb” and said severe preeclampsia was a predictable outcome. They were alarmed that Walker was never offered the option to terminate her pregnancy. Doctors involved in her care didn’t respond to requests for comment, and the hospitals she visited did not comment on her care.
In another case we reported last week, in North Carolina in 2023, 34-year-old Ciji Graham learned she was newly pregnant at the same time that her heart condition began acting up. Her heart rhythm became rapid and irregular. Yet instead of offering to shock her heart, the treatment Graham had always received in the past, her cardiologist said she couldn’t because Graham was pregnant, according to medical records and text messages.
More than a dozen experts who reviewed her case for ProPublica said this was incorrect; the procedure, called a cardioversion, is safe during pregnancy. A second cardiologist didn’t perform an electrocardiogram to confirm her heart rate was normal, which experts said would have been best practice, and also sent her home. Neither doctor involved in her care responded to questions. A spokesperson for Cone Health, where Graham typically went for care, said its “treatment for pregnant women with underlying cardiac disease is consistent with accepted standards of care in our region.”
Graham’s chest was hammering, she couldn’t sleep and she was short of breath. Although the risk of death was low, she wanted to protect her health and believed an abortion was her best option. She already had a son, and because of her illness, the birth was complicated. She wanted to get a procedure that could cure her heart condition before she had another child.
In North Carolina, abortion is still legal up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, but lawmakers had recently enacted a 72-hour waiting period that required two in-person visits, which was clogging up the clinics. The one abortion clinic in Graham’s city was also overrun with patients from nearby states that had instituted stricter abortion bans.
The earliest appointment Graham could get was two weeks away.
She didn’t have that long to wait. Four days later, she died.
Neither of these mothers could get the care she needed. When the emergency arrived, it was too late.
