Indict Them All

Let's cure a ton of patriarchy, shall we?

You may or may not have heard about the avoidable tragedy the Walker family experienced – Tierra Walker was 20 weeks pregnant when she developed severe pre-eclampsia and needed an abortion to save her life. At 37 years young, she died because she was denied abortion care. The family is suing Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, the doctors involved as well as state health officials for wrongful death. And they are right to do so.

Dr. Savita Halappanavar was 31 years young when she died in Ireland because doctors would not perform the abortion she needed to save her life. That was in 2012. In 2026 abortion is more accessible in Ireland than it is in the United States. And you didn’t have to be in health care to know that more people would die preventable deaths if abortion access were made illegal. Yet here we are, in a completely predictable nightmare watching pregnant people die and families torn apart because not only is being pregnant a crime, but providing health care to pregnant people is criminal, too.

People have been charged with crimes because of pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes for decades. Pregnancy Justice, a leading organization in the advocacy for protecting pregnant people’s civil rights, has the reliable data and it is sobering. The leading offenders of charging pregnant people with the crime of being pregnant are Oklahoma and Alabama, but Texas is right up there with them. As if that weren’t bad enough, of the cases where criminal charges were brought against pregnant people, over 60% were initiated from a medical facility. (Allow me to take this moment to ask my fellow health care providers to STOP being the bad guy—don’t help them hurt our patients.) No one deserves to be threatened with prison for being pregnant, having a miscarriage, or needing an abortion. No one deserves to be threatened with prison for doing what they were educated and trained to do, by nationally accredited institutions no less, to save someone’s life. But if you create and enforce laws that kill people? Yeah, you deserve to be threatened with prison for that.

So I was trying to figure out what criminal act it is when someone “makes a rule they know will result in someone’s death.” I mean, these are unprecedented times requiring unprecedented questions. It turns out there IS a name for that criminal act: “reckless manslaughter or murder.” Under Texas Penal Code Chapter 19, a person commits criminal homicide if they intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence cause the death of an individual. I’d say making health care illegal is criminal negligence at the very least and using the most generous interpretation. They knew what would happen. They knew making abortion illegal would make health care providers afraid to provide care. They knew making abortion illegal would mean people would die. They didn’t need a crystal ball and there was never any doubt because we had already seen it. History told us all what would happen, so the “how could I have known?” defense is laughable at best.

Attorneys general are threatening to imprison health care providers for saving pregnant people’s lives, and pregnant people are dying preventable deaths as a result. The government is holding providers hostage while it watches pregnant people die. The government knows that all it has to do is release its hostage to allow the pregnant person’s life to be saved. And yet state governments not only refuse to release their hostages, but continue to gaslight us into believing they are "the good guys.”

I am putting the following list of government agents on notice as responsible for the not decreasing maternal mortality rate, increasing infant mortality rate, doubling of deaths from ectopic pregnancies, and generally for causing the preventable deaths of people and destruction of families:

Let’s not forget the Supreme Court Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Coney Barrett and Roberts.

As we enter a critical time of midterm elections, I need the candidates to understand one very simple thing and act accordingly: If you aren’t working to help people, you are working to hurt them, and that could end up killing them. We must correct our systems to ensure those enforcing deadly laws are held accountable and the laws are repealed. As it stands, the highest court in the nation will do no such thing, and that must be remedied.

Let us learn from the Walker family and not allow Ms. Tierra Walker's death be in vain. Let it be known to the attorneys general, legislators, governors, supreme court justices, et al: if you can charge me with a criminal act for doing my job, I can charge you with the same.