Despite claims by politicians, media outlets and abortion activists that women's health in Texas is at risk under pro-life laws, new figures released by the state show that doctors intervene in cases where the mother's life is at risk.
The latest data from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission on Induced Terminations of Pregnancies (HHSC ITOP) shows that doctors in Texas performed 113 life-saving abortions on pregnant women in the 22 months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
Texas has a pro-life law that went into effect shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade., which prevents elective abortions from conception with an exception for medically necessary abortions when the pregnancy causes “a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or resulting from pregnancy that places the woman at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion is performed or induced.” Additionally, every state in the country with a pro-life law includes an exception for the life of the mother.
Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign have previously claimed that doctors are prohibited from performing abortions under a pro-life law when the pregnancy puts the woman's life at risk.
When the Texas Supreme Court ruled in May that doctors can use “reasonable medical judgment” to determine whether a pregnancy requires a medically necessary abortion, Harris tweeted: “This ruling by the Texas Supreme Court means women will continue to be denied access to necessary medical care, putting their health and lives at risk. To the women of Texas: know that you are not alone. @POTUS and I will continue to fight for reproductive freedom.”
Asked for comment, Harris' campaign pointed to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll in which 68% of obstetricians and gynecologists said the Dobbs ruling has worsened their ability to manage pregnancy-related emergencies and 64% said the decision has worsened pregnancy-related mortality.
“The latest report reaffirms that Kamala Harris's appalling claims about Texas' abortion protection laws are completely unfounded,” Amy O'Donnell, communications director for Texas Alliance for Life, said in a news release about the data. “Texas laws continue to save unborn babies from abortion, while protecting women's lives in those rare and tragic cases where pregnancy endangers the life or health of the pregnant woman.”
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“Since the Court revoked Roe, “No doctor has been prosecuted by a district attorney, disciplined by the Texas Medical Board, or sued by the Attorney General, and no pregnant woman has lost her life due to provisions of Texas' abortion laws, even with more than 360,000 live births in Texas each year,” O'Donnell added.
Dr. Ingrid Skop, vice president and chief medical officer at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told Fox News Digital that “intentional media misinformation” about Texas' pro-life laws initially left many doctors confused and fearful, but that the situation has improved after the Texas Medical Board and the Texas Supreme Court issued guidance to doctors, assuring them that they can use their “reasonable medical judgment” to determine when to intervene, and that the risk of maternal death need not be “imminent.”
“The Texas Induced Terminations of Pregnancy (ITOP) reports also demonstrate that physicians have intervened in the rare circumstances where an abortion is necessary to save a mother's life,” she said. “In 2023, 62 abortions were performed in hospitals. 77% were performed by induction of labor and only 6% were performed by dilation and evacuation (dismemberment) abortion. 90% were performed between 13 and 25 weeks post-fertilization.”
“Similarly, data for the first four months of 2024 show that 32 abortions have been performed,” she added. “Texas is protecting the life of the fetus, but the state is also prioritizing the life of the mother and allowing doctors to provide quality care when serious complications arise.”
The “Medical Edification” initiatives in Texas, as well as Florida, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Kentucky, are aimed at stopping the abortion lobby from spreading what Kelsey Pritchard, state public affairs director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called misinformation that confuses doctors and harms women.
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“In Texas, specifically, with this Texas MedEd rule, they made it clear that doctors can continue to rely on their reasonable medical judgment,” Pritchard said. “They also made it clear that you shouldn't wait until a woman is actually at the point where her life is in danger. If there's a foreseeable threat, then that allows doctors to act. You don't wait until a dangerous situation presents itself. I think that's a very important point in Texas and in all pro-life states.”
Pritchard said the discussion topic is a tactic by Democrats to distract from their push to provide abortions in all trimesters, which only 10% According to SBA Pro-Life data, 35 percent of Americans support abortion in all circumstances, compared with 50 percent who support it in certain circumstances. Only 12 percent of respondents were in favor of making it completely illegal.
“I think the pro-choice lobby has been telling this lie for a long time that if there's a pro-life bill, it's going to put women in danger and they're going to die because they're not going to be able to get emergency care,” she said. “It's something they've been saying for a long time, but we've seen it increase with Dobbs and it's become their main argument, their main lie in red states, in particular.”
“Whether it's a ballot measure, a legislative fight, or a candidate, a Democrat, talking about abortion, this is the number they go to because they know that the Democratic agenda of pro-choice in all trimesters is unpopular with Americans in general,” she added. “They use this as a justification to say, 'Oh, we can't have any limits, we can't do it at any time, not even in the seventh, eighth, ninth month of pregnancy, you have to be able to have abortions at all times because you're putting women in danger.'”
In Florida, Planned Parenthood employee Laura Goodhue said banning abortions at six weeks gestation would create a “public health crisis” in the state, while Democratic state Sen. Lauren Book said “women and girls will die” as a result of the law.
A pregnant woman poses for a portrait in Dallas, Thursday, May 18, 2023. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
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In June, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general issued guidance clarifying that the 15-week abortion law does not prevent a pregnant woman from receiving treatment when she suffers a miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, or other health emergency. However, pro-choice groups ran ads claiming that women’s lives were at risk. President Biden himself claimed that “women’s lives are at risk” regarding the law.
Pritchard said Democrats and the abortion lobby are the ones putting women's lives at risk by telling such “lies.”
“That lie is what's putting women in danger, it's what's led some women to delay seeking medical care,” she said. “We've heard some of these horror stories where there are a handful of doctors who are confused about their ability to provide care, like the story of a woman who was told to wait in her car until she was bleeding profusely. That's incorrect and those situations are often created by this misinformation.”
“I hope that pro-choice people, pro-life people, we can all agree that this is wrong and that women need to understand the truth, doctors need to understand the truth that life-saving care is as available now as it's ever been,” she added.
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