Summary
Texas’ strict abortion ban is causing doctors to avoid life-saving dilation and curettage (D&C) procedures, used to remove pregnancy tissue after miscarriages, due to fear of legal repercussions.
Porsha Ngumezi, 35, died in June 2023 after doctors at Houston Methodist Sugar Land gave her misoprostol—a slower, riskier treatment—instead of performing a D&C, despite severe hemorrhaging.
Experts say her death was preventable.
Miscarriage care delays and denials have risen statewide, with physicians hesitant to act under unclear legal protections.
Critics argue the law prioritizes criminal penalties over patient safety, leading to preventable deaths.
But friend if the doctors step aside, there isn’t anyone to step in their place. Say what you want, but no one will willingly go to jail for one case, when staying out of jail means they can help hundreds. Doctors need support and help, not berating and insults. They’re humans like the rest of us and just doing their best with the shitshow the state handed to them. In some places even the misoprostol is forbidden, as it is part of the medical abortion protocol. Take it on with the constituents who voted for this mess, and the politicians who enacted the regulations, but not on the victims being forced to make morbid choises between their own lives and the lives of others.