State officials skip in-depth analysis of pregnancy-related deaths from 2022 and 2023

AUSTIN, Texas (KTRK) -- State health officials will not be providing their usual review of pregnancy-related deaths for 2022 and 2023.

That means no in-depth analysis of the years immediately following the state's near-total abortion ban.

More than a dozen people spoke out at Friday's Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee, saying the decision not to review data only adds to an environment of mistrust and confusion.

"My greatest fear, at this moment, is not, 'Will I get pregnant or will I be a good parent?'" Serita Fontanesi said. "It's, 'Will I even survive my pregnancy?'"

Fontanesi wants to start a family. However, she, like so many others at Friday's meeting, has heard stories of pregnant women being denied care.

"My big thing is that we can't know what to do if we don't really know what's going on," she explained.

The state's Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee was created ten years ago to analyze who is dying from pregnancy-related causes and why.

Committee members present recommendations to legislators, who then create the laws we have to abide by.

However, this year's committee report only has data from 2019 and 2020, which isn't very useful.

So, the group's chair decided to skip ahead past 2022 and 2023 and catch up by starting to analyze data on deaths from 2024 instead.

In 2021, the state of Texas banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

A year later, in 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and a near-total ban went into effect.

"There are times when things are coincidental, and this just happens to be one of those times," Dr. Carla Ortique, who chairs the committee, explained. "We have no intent of burying information, and it is our desire to review all maternal deaths."

Dr. Ortique said she has advocated to change state law, which has always banned the committee, which is mostly made up of physicians, from looking into deaths that involve any form of abortion.

So, by design, pregnancy-related deaths that you might have heard about wouldn't be included in its data anyway, meaning learning the true impact of the state's ban will be difficult at the very least.

"The thing is that when we aren't transparent, when we aren't honest about what's happening, it leaves a lot of space for people to fill in the blanks," Fontanesi said. "So, whether it is or it isn't politically motivated at this point doesn't matter at this point because the perception is that's exactly what's going on."

The committee's next report is expected to be released in 2026, which is the same year Governor Abbott could be up for re-election.

Members of the committee are appointed by the governor.

For more on this story, follow Pooja Lodhia on Facebook,X and Instagram.