A Sepsis Surge in Texas
2.20.25
Click to skip ahead: Texas’ Sepsis Surge examines the skyrocketing infection rates among pregnant women. In the States has news from Indiana, Missouri, and Ohio. Keep An Eye On what so-called abortion ‘abolitionists’ are saying. Quick Clips has a video of yours truly talking about a question I got last night and the answer I wish I would have given. In the Nation, some recommended reading on abortion bans, criminalization, and a new study about period tracking apps. And You Love to See It celebrates Amanda Zurawski, aka a TIME Woman of the year! And a vital resource for folks who want proactive
Texas’ Sepsis Surge
Abortion bans don’t just kill women—they inflict horrific, unnecessary suffering. And a new ProPublica investigation puts numbers to just a fraction of that horror. Since Texas banned abortion, cases of sepsis among women hospitalized for second-trimester pregnancy loss in the state have surged by 50%. Fifty percent. This graph says it all:
To no one’s surprise, the spike of this life-threatening infection was caused by Texas’ abortion policy—a law that puts doctors in the position of weighing prison time against giving their patients adequate care. ProPublica—which has investigated the deaths of several women who were killed by bans in Texas and Georgia—reports that the surge “was most pronounced for patients whose fetus may still have had a heartbeat when they arrived at the hospital.”
In fact, ProPublica found that the sepsis rate among women whose fetuses did not have a heartbeat was much lower—that’s because in those cases, doctors didn’t have to fear for their licenses or freedom. From OBGYN and professor Dr. Kristina Adams Waldorf:
“What this says to me is that once a fetal death is diagnosed, doctors can appropriately take care of someone to prevent sepsis, but if the fetus still has a heartbeat, then they aren’t able to act and the risk for maternal sepsis goes way up. This is needlessly putting a woman’s life in danger.”
This comes at the same time that the infant and maternal mortality rates in Texas are also skyrocketing: maternal deaths rose 33% since 2019, and infant mortality spiked by nearly 13%.
What is Texas going to do about it? A big fat nothing. In November, the state’s maternal mortality committee announced that they won’t be examining data from 2022 and 2023—coincidentally, the two years after Texas enacted its abortion ban.
Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other Republicans are making noise about ‘clarifying’ the ban. But if you’ve been reading this newsletter—or my book—you already know that Republicans’ version of ‘clarity’ would actually be a bad thing for Texas women.
When conservatives talk about ‘clarifying’ a ban, they don’t mean fixing it. They mean making it even worse. Just look at South Dakota, where lawmakers passed a bill requiring the health department to create an informational video and other materials to ‘clarify’ the state’s abortion law. The idea was to explain to doctors what types of medical conditions legally qualify for emergency care. That’s right, legislators decided they get to tell doctors when women really need a life-saving abortion.
And who helped craft that so-called guidance? The extremist group American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs (AAPLOG)—an organization that falsely claims women don’t need life-saving abortions anyway, because they can just be forced into a C-section instead.
All of which is to say: When Texas lawmakers say they’re going to clarify a ban, they’re talking about moves that make medical care for pregnant people even more dangerous than it already is. For more, read the explainer below:
In the States
I think we could all use some good news, and Indiana has got it: A judge has temporarily blocked the state from making abortion reports public records. I know, it’s nuts that this was even on the table.
Read some background here and here. but the short version is that Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita has been trying to force the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) to treat abortion reports like birth and death certificates—meaning they’d be publicly accessible. Why? So anti-abortion maniacs can scour through them looking for evidence of supposed wrongdoing.
IDOH fought back, pointing out that while women’s names aren’t on the reports, there’s enough information to reverse engineer someone’s identity. Still, Indiana’s new governor issued an executive order to force IDOH to turn then over.
But like the true heroes they are, OBGYNs Dr. Caitlin Bernard and Caroline Rouse sued earlier this month to stop the reports from being released. And today, a Marion County judge issued a temporary restraining order that will block the reports from becoming public for at least the next ten days.
Another small victory this week? An Ohio judge has struck down a law that required women who have abortions to bury or cremate their fetal remains, ruling that it violated the state’s abortion rights amendment, Issue 1, passed in 2023.
Thankfully, the law—clearly designed to shame and punish women—had been temporarily blocked for years. Still, ACLU cooperating attorney Jessie Hill said, “We’re relieved that the order is now final so our clients can move forward and focus on providing essential healthcare.”
Finally, I know I’ve written a lot about this Missouri bill that would create a registry of pregnant women—but I just had to share this latest tidbit. It appears that the adoption attorney who drafted the legislation with Republican Rep. Phil Amato is currently fighting for his life in Facebook comments. Jay Harms is spending quite a lot of time on the social media platform defending his bill and insisting that it’s definitely not inspired by the Handmaid’s Tale. How dare we even think such a thing!
Harms claims that his registry of pregnant women would be totally voluntary and that this is simply about helping women. What Harms doesn’t seem to realize, however, is that we can all see his other Facebook comments, too—including the one where he trolls a pro-choice organization.
Back in October, Harms commented on a heart-wrenching video from the Center for Reproductive Rights featuring a young woman who had to travel for abortion care. He called it, “the stupidest ad yet.”
Obviously, I don’t expect anything better from these assholes. But sometimes it’s worth remembering that the men crafting this kind of legislation are really just someone’s awful boomer dad who spends their days complaining on FB. I don’t know if that makes this worse or better, but it sure does put things in perspective.
By the way, Reproductive Freedom for All president Mini Timmaraju was on MSNBC yesterday talking about this bill—and she issued the same warning that I did earlier this week:
“It opens the door for so-called crisis pregnancy centers to be the ones running this platform, running that data—and really getting into coercive and problematic tactics to persuade pregnant women that they should place their children under adoption.”
One last bit of news in Missouri: Abortions are slowly starting to be performed again in the state. Now that a judge has blocked both the state’s abortion ban and Republican-imposed licensing rules for clinics, Planned Parenthood has begun to schedule patients again.
The New York Times reports, however, that the organization still isn’t prescribing abortion pills because the state needs to “approve a required plan for reporting any complications faced by women who use them.” You know by now that the idea of abortion medication ‘complications’ are a bunch of bullshit—but it’s always worth repeating.
Despite the slow rollout of abortion care, Missouri Republicans are outraged and vowing to fight back. They’re specifically seizing on the blocked licensing requirements to claim that abortion is now dangerous in the state. Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin even said, “Now, back-alley abortions aren’t just a risk, they’re legal under Amendment 3.” If abortions are legal, how can they be ‘back alley’?? Make it make sense!
Keep An Eye On
The Oklahoma men who want to charge abortion patients with murder have had a rough week—their ‘equal protection’ bill failed! I mentioned this in yesterday’s newsletter, but 1) you can never take too many victory laps, and 2) the politician behind the effort said something worth flagging.
Oklahoma Sen. Dusty Deevers went on a tear against women who “premeditatedly” end their pregnancies—calling the lack of punishment for abortion patients a “loophole.”
“She can buy abortion pills, premeditatedly know exactly what she's doing, look it up online, make the phone call, wait a few days, get them in her mailbox, take them from her mailbox to her house, unpackage them and ingest the pill…This is all premeditated action. But our current law has a loophole that says she will not be prosecuted if she takes the life of her own child. We have a protected class of murderer in our state.”
Watch that word—‘loophole.’ Anti-abortion extremists will keep using it to make punishing women sound like they’re just fixing red tape.
But here’s the bit I want you to pay really close attention to: KOSU reports that when Senate Judiciary Chair Brent Howard asked Deevers whether his bill would criminalize out-of-state abortions, the Oklahoma lawmaker gave a slick answer—saying it would depend on whether the courts allowed it.
Here’s why this is important: Deevers ran for office as an abortion ‘abolitionist’—meaning he’s part of the extremist sect that wants to give abortion patients life in prison or the death penalty. It’s a movement that’s growing in power and influence. So when one of their own—a state legislator, no less—says he supports murder charges for abortion patients, he’s not just talking about what he wants for Oklahoma women. He’s giving us a preview of what his movement wants for women nationwide.
Quick Clips
If you don’t follow me on TikTok, don’t despair! As Substack’s video features get better, I’ll be sharing a few clips at the newsletter from time to time. The one below was inspired by a question I got last night at the Brooklyn Public Library—a question that I wish I answered a little more…honestly.
Sometimes I worry that by not being transparent about how difficult this work can be, I make people feel like they should be able to let things roll off their back. So I want folks to know that yes, this is hard—and that feeling despair is reasonable. It doesn’t make you any less of an activist, and doesn’t mean we can’t do the work anyway. ❤️
In the Nation
The American Prospect covers the interstate attack on abortion providers;
Law professor Rachel Rebouché writes at The Nation about the complicated constitutional issues behind conservatives’ attempts to extradite doctors;
A new study finds an increase of women using period and fertility tracking apps despite concerns over data and digital privacy;
Jill Filipovic writes at the New Statesman that “the legacy of ‘pro-life’ abortion bans is death”;
And because 2025 apparently didn’t have enough terrifying stupidity: Donald Trump asked a Miami audience today whether they knew what condoms were.
You Love to See It
Congratulations to TIME Woman of the Year, Amanda Zurawski! Zurawski—who became an abortion rights activist after going septic and nearly dying in Texas—has been working and fighting her ass off to stop the same thing from happening to other women.
At TIME, Zurawski admits that (like all of us) she was devastated when Kamala Harris lost the presidency. But I loved what she said about refusing to wallow:
“The anti-choice movement would want us to be tired, they’d want us to rest. It’s not in my nature to give up. It can get worse, and it will, if we don’t continue to fight.”
If you haven’t heard her story before, please take the time to watch her interview with The Meteor. It’s difficult, but I really do believe the very least we can do is bear witness to what these laws really do:
Finally, in a moment when everything feels like so much of the work we’re doing is on the defensive, I’m so grateful for groups like All Above All. Instead of working to simply restore the status quo—which left too many people behind—the group is fighting for true abortion justice.
If you’re interested in working towards the same, I recommend you check All Above All’s latest ‘Abortion Justice Playbook.’ The document not only sets the stage and offers vital context for what we’re dealing with right now—but lays out proactive policy recommendations that folks can implement on the national, state or local level.
Some highlights: Tips for local policymakers on everything from establishing buffer zones to working with school boards to implement culturally competent reproductive and sexual health information and services; recommendations for actions that governors and DAs can take; and a breakdown of federal legislation like the Abortion Justice Act.
It really is one of those resources that you find yourself going back to again and again–whether it’s to get ideas for what to pressure your representatives on, or inspiration for your own activism. You can check out the playbook here.
Thank you, Jessica, for all your hard work. The video you posted reminded me very much of what physicians and nurses, and later vaccine developers, said during the height of the pandemic. They were getting called murderers in public (much as you mentioned), and so on, but kept treating people and trying to save lives because they thought of what they were doing as not just a job but as a calling, as something they were almost morally obligated to do. Getting cussed out and attacked caused what they called "moral injury", the kind of stress you describe, that can't just be waved off or forgotten. I remember thinking at the time that I would not have the mental strength to do work like that, watch people die under my hands, and then get vilified. All of us are so very fortunate that there are some people who have the strength to do work like yours! Sending good California vibes your way.
It really is the definition of Orwellian: let a woman die and be celebrated for your “pro-life” stance, save a woman’s life and be vilified and maybe even imprisoned. Let paid for food and medicine aid rot at a port, and call it preventing waste. Lecture Europeans about free speech while cozying up to Putin & MBS. Call orders stripping women of rights and healthcare “protecting women.”