New medical report shows infant mortality spike in Texas after extreme abortion ban—driven by a 23% increase in deaths due to birth defects
Senator Murray: “It’s hard to imagine the nightmare of waking up every day, with a pregnancy you know will end in heartbreak—but being unable to get medical care, unable to grieve, and unable to move forward because politicians won’t let you.”
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Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), issued the following statement on a new report showing a marked 13 percent rise in infant mortality in Texas, from 2021 to 2022—following the state’s implementation of a strict abortion ban. The report’s findings suggest the rise is driven by women forced to carry pregnancies with fatal fetal abnormalities to term—as infant deaths due to birth defects jumped by 23 percent in Texas, compared to a three percent decrease nationally.
“This report shines a searing light on one of the many harsh realities of the cruel Republican abortion bans Donald Trump created. In states like Texas, women who have received heartbreaking news about a fetal abnormality have absolutely no choice about what to do next. Instead, Republican politicians are forcing them to suffer through nine months of a pregnancy these women know is doomed, regardless of what they want or what they are going through. This is happening, right now, to women in the United States of Amerca,” said Senator Murray. “It’s hard to imagine the nightmare of waking up every day, with a pregnancy you know will end in heartbreak—but being unable to get medical care, unable to grieve, and unable to move forward because politicians won’t let you. It is hard to imagine—and it is impossible to forget. I will continue to be a voice for everyone who is being harmed by Republicans’ deranged anti-abortion extremism, and Democrats will not stop fighting until we fully restore the right for every woman to make her own health care decisions.”
Senator Murray is a longtime leader in the fight to protect and expand access to reproductive health care and abortion rights, and she has led Congressional efforts to fight back after the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision overturning Roe v. Wade last year. Murray led her colleagues at the outset of this Congress to make crystal clear that Senate Democrats are continuing to fight to protect every American’s reproductive rights and will be a firewall against Republicans’ continued attacks on women’s rights—and that’s exactly what she’s doing now. Murray has introduced more than a dozen pieces of legislation to protect reproductive rights from further attacks, protect providers, and help ensure women get the care they need; she also co-leads the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would restore the right to abortion nationwide. Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision, Senator Murray led Senate Democrats in seeking unanimous consent on the Senate floor for four common-sense bills to protect women’s fundamental freedoms, and in January she led her colleagues in hosting a “State of Abortion Rights” briefing with women who have suffered firsthand from Republican abortion bans. On June 4th, Senator Murray chaired a HELP Committee hearing titled “The Assault on Women’s Freedoms: How Abortion Bans Have Created a Health Care Nightmare Across America.” Recently, Murray also helped lead efforts to force Republicans on the record on votes to protect access to contraception and access to IVF—Senate Republicans blocked consideration of both bills, showing once again how extreme and out-of-step they are with the American people. In advance of the Dobbs anniversary, Murray, Schumer, and other Senate Democratic women introduced a bill expressing support for reproductive rights and challenging Republicans to at least support the idea that women should be able to access basic reproductive health care.
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