(LifeSiteNews) — The Texas Medical Board has penalized three doctors for the deaths of two women in their care, finding them at fault rather than the pro-life laws that the mainstream media and abortion lobby initially tried to blame.
Texas currently has a near-total abortion ban dating back to 1925 and a trigger law signed in 2021, as well as a heartbeat-based abortion ban that was allowed to take effect by the Texas and U.S. Supreme Courts thanks to its unconventional enforcement mechanism (citizen lawsuits rather than government prosecution), several months before the nation’s highest court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, allowing the rest to be enforced.
Under these laws, abortions – which destroy an innocent child and are never actually medically necessary – may only be committed for a “life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that, as certified by a physician, places the woman in danger of death or a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless an abortion is performed.”
It is this language that the abortion lobby has seized on for much of its propaganda efforts. Outlets such as ProPublica have highlighted the deaths of Porsha Ngumezi, who died after suffering a miscarriage (not an abortion) and being given misoprostol rather than a dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure; Neveah Crain, who died, along with her wanted baby, of sepsis after being misdiagnosed with strep and a urinary tract infection; and other similar tragedies, claiming that they resulted from denial of so-called “abortion-related care.”
Pro-lifers and other objective fact-checkers have pushed back on such claims, and now the Christian Post reports that the Texas Medical Board has vindicated their efforts by ruling that Dr. Andrew Ryan Davis had provided substandard care to Ngumezi, and Dr. Ali Mohamed Osman and Dr. William Noel Hawkins to Crain. All three must take eight hours of continuing education courses.
Davis’s failure to perform a D&C would not have violated the abortion ban, as it would have only been abortion to use it to kill a living baby and not to remove already-deceased remains (and is also logically inconsistent with his decision to ultimately use misoprostol, to which the same applies). As for Crain’s case, Osman failed to look into her stomach cramps, and Hawkins neglected her high fever and testing positive for sepsis.
“Over the course of my career, I’ve had many horrific, horrific death cases. For someone to get disciplined by the medical board, especially while there’s ongoing litigation, is just extraordinarily rare,” responded Michelle Maloney, attorney for the victims’ families.
Notably, ProPublica still refuses to budge from blaming pro-life laws, citing a statement signed by more than 100 Texas OB-GYNs in 2024, without noting that the letter in turn cited ProPublica’s own disputed reporting as justification. It also pointed to language that Texas adopted last year clarifying the law’s exception language as an admission.
Data shows that fewer than five percent of abortions are sought for rape, incest, or “medical emergencies,” despite the abortion lobby’s attempts to use the most emotionally trying circumstances to keep all abortions legal.
While some emergency situations in pregnancy can necessitate treatments that indirectly and unintentionally result in a child’s death, numerous pro-life doctors (including former abortionists) attest that direct abortion is always unnecessary to save a mother’s life and, in fact, abortion would often be the worst thing that could be done for the mother in a genuine emergency, as it often takes longer than actual treatment or even delivery and can introduce new medical complications for a doctor to contend with.
Regardless, every state in the union with abortion prohibitions currently in effect also permits doctors to administer life-saving, non-abortive treatment to pregnant women even if it comes at the expense of a baby’s life.
Pro-abortion activists have long sought to keep abortion debates focused on such situations, to divert attention from the vast majority of abortions that are sought for far less “sympathetic” reasons. They have gotten mileage out of that approach, which has helped defeat pro-lifers in numerous state ballot referendums and convinced national Republicans to take a more “moderate” stance on life.
Meanwhile, despite its pro-life laws, Texas is still dealing with the problem of out-of-state actors using pills to circumvent Texas law, facilitating abortions that take place completely in private. Last September, the state enacted the Woman and Child Protection Act that makes it broadly illegal to “manufacture, possess, or distribute an abortion-inducing drug in this state” as well as to help facilitate their acquisition. Attorney General Ken Paxton is also attempting to sue abortionists from other states who have shipped abortion drugs into Texas.
