Jasmine Crockett to review panel: why are you skipping two years of maternal deaths?

AUSTIN – The Dallas Morning News reports that U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, wants to know why a Texas committee opted not to conduct in-depth investigations of pregnancy-related deaths from 2022 and 2023. Crockett and several other House Democrats wrote Thursday to Jennifer Shuford, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, requesting a briefing by Jan. 2 about the decision. Investigative news outlet ProPublica has identified several pregnant women in Texas who died after they couldn’t access timely reproductive care. Crockett accused Texas Republicans of trying to bury their stories. “We are demanding the Texas Department of State Health Services explain its reasoning behind its decision to stop reviewing maternal mortality deaths in the years following their abortion ban,” Crockett said in a news release. “The people of Texas deserve the truth.”

Texas Department of State Health Services officials did not respond Friday to an emailed request for comment. At issue is the 23-member Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee and its decision to skip over the two years in question and move on to reviewing 2024 cases in depth. That decision raised concern given the timing of the tight abortion restrictions adopted by the state. In 2021, Texas enacted a ban on abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy, followed by a near-total ban on abortion a year later. The law has an exception allowing abortions in life-threatening situations, but the scope of that exception has been the subject of continuing confusion for some medical providers. Some committee members have said the decision was not politically motivated and described it as an attempt to catch up on a backlog of data and provide more up-to-date reviews of maternal deaths.