Over the past few years, women in certain parts of the world, particularly in places with restrictive abortion laws, continue to face dangerous consequences of being denied access to safe and legal abortion services. While there is a global debate over these accesses it still remains fiercely contested. A disturbing reality has emerged for women; they are dying because they’re being forced to carry pregnancies to term against their will, or are unable to get these necessary medical procedures when their health is at risk.
In Texas, pregnancy has become far more dangerous after the state banned abortion in 2021. “ProPublica found in a first of its kind data analysis.” The rate of sepsis has shot up more than 50% for women who are hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester. This is a life-threatening condition that is caused by infection. Sepsis can lead to permanent kidney failure, brain damage and some serious blood clotting. Propublica reported two cases in which women miscarried in Texas had died from sepsis after doctors delayed evacuating their uteruses because this would have been considered an abortion.
Nevaeh Crain was a 18 year old pregnant teenager who passed away after attempting to obtain care during multiple visits to Texas Emergency rooms. It took three ER visits and 20 hours before the hospital admitted Nevaeh as her condition worsened doctors had insisted on two ultrasounds to confirm “fetal demise.” She’s one of at least two Texas women that have died under the state’s abortion ban.
Ever since the Texas abortion ban, sepsis rates for pregnant women have skyrocketed, particularly for those who had been hospitalized during their second trimester. “Among the 14 states with abortion bans researchers have found a higher than expected live births among racially minoritized individuals”. Such as people without a college degree, unmarried, younger individuals. “These findings indicate that many pregnant people were unable to overcome barriers to access abortion services and instead were forced to continue an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy to term,” says Suzanne Bell, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health and the study’s co-lead author. This ban has affected countless women across these 14 states and has shown that many of them could’ve had an abortion but instead were forced to continue with a pregnancy that was not only unwanted, but unsafe.
In light of recent years following this ban the infant mortality rate in the United States has been declining with 5.6 infant deaths per 1,00 live births in 2022 versus the 6.9 infant deaths in 2000. These findings have shown that the abortion policies may be reversing decades of progress in reducing infant deaths in the United States.
