In Texas, You’re More Likely to Bleed to Death During a Miscarriage 

But because the procedures, known as D&Cs, are also used to end pregnancies, they have gotten tangled up in state legislation that restricts abortion. Reports now abound of doctors hesitating to provide them and women who are bleeding heavily being discharged from emergency rooms without care, only to return in such dire condition that they need blood transfusions to survive. As ProPublica reported last year, one woman died of hemorrhage after 10 hours in a Houston hospital that didn’t perform the procedure.

The outlet further reported that the number of ER visits for early miscarriage rose by 25%, compared with the three years before covid, which they write is “a sign that women who didn’t receive D&Cs initially may be returning to hospitals in worse condition, more than a dozen experts told ProPublica.”

In September 2021, Texas passed its six-week abortion ban, known as SB 8. Less than a year later, in August 2022, the state enacted its total abortion ban, which was allowed to go into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The ban has only one exception—to save the life of the mother—and it threatens doctors with up to 99 years in prison or fines up to $100,000. The laughable but terrifying penalties combined with the ban’s vague and confusing language have caused doctors and hospitals to delay life-saving healthcare to pregnant people during medical emergencies.

On Saturday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 31, or The Life of the Mother Act, a bipartisan effort that claims to finally provide clarity around when doctors are allowed to save a pregnant person’s life. Of course, it barely does that—SB 31 doesn’t expand access, it just reiterates the existing law and says that doctors can remove fetal remains after a miscarriage or treat an ectopic pregnancy without stressing about going to prison. How generous!

But advocates have raised alarms that, despite the bipartisan support, some of the bill’s language, according to Bolts Mag, “could help resurrect the century-old abortion ban that would allow for criminalizing pregnant people seeking abortions, along with anyone who helps them get the procedure, even if it’s out of state.”

A gaslighting attempt to make pregnant people feel safer while Trojan-horsing a century-old abortion ban that would put even more pregnant people at risk? Sounds like the Texas GOP to me.