Texas OB-GYNs are urging lawmakers to change abortion laws after reports of maternal deaths.

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A group of 111 OB-GYNs in Texas released a letter to elected state leaders Sunday urging them to change abortion laws they say have prevented them from providing life-saving care to pregnant women.

The doctors pointed to a recent report by ProPublica about two pregnant women in Texas who died after medical staff delayed providing emergency care.

Josseli Barnica, 28, died of an infection in 2021 three days after her first miscarriage. More than a dozen medical experts said Barnica’s death was preventable. However, state abortion laws prevented doctors from intervening until they could detect a fetal heartbeat, which did not occur until about 40 hours after the abortion. start it.

Nevaeh Crain, 18, died last year after developing a fatal case of sepsis that doctors refused to treat while her six-month-old baby was still having seizures. when the heart Two emergency rooms did not treat him, and a third delayed, sending Crain to the intensive care unit after his organ failed. Medical experts say that if hospital staff had treated her sooner, they could have helped Crain give birth sooner or saved her life by terminating the pregnancy if the infection was too advanced.

“Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain should be alive today,” the doctors wrote in their letter. “As Texas OB-GYNs, we know firsthand how these laws hinder us from providing quality, evidence-based care to our patients.”

In 2021, Texas lawmakers passed a law prohibiting doctors from performing abortions after six weeks. The law allows members of the public to sue doctors or anyone who facilitates an abortion for $10,000.

After the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson changed Roe v. Wade, Texas banned almost all abortions – including in cases of rape and sexual relations with a relative. The law makes an exception for a doctor to perform an abortion if he believes it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman. Doctors who violate the state’s abortion law risk losing their medical license and potentially life in prison.

Doctors say confusion over what constitutes a life-threatening condition has changed the way they treat pregnant patients with complications. The Texas Medical Board has issued guidelines on how to interpret the statutory medical exception, and the Texas Supreme Court has ruled that doctors do not need to wait until there is imminent danger. for patient intervention. But some doctors say the guidelines are unclear and that hospitals are looking at each case on a case-by-case basis.

ProPublica’s report on Crain and Barnica comes as Sen. Ted Cruz and US Representative Colin Allred of Dallas are facing off in an intense bid for one of Texas’ two US Senate seats. Their differing views on abortion have been a central issue in the race, with both candidates reflecting on Crain’s and Barnica’s deaths.

“Texas doctors can’t do their jobs because of Ted Cruz’s brutal abortion ban,” Allred wrote in X, linking to the Crain’s story. “Cruz even asked SCOTUS to allow states to ban life-saving abortions.”

In 2021, Cruz supported a 20-week abortion ban. He also introduced a bill that would allow states to exclude medical providers who perform abortions from Medicaid funding. After the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Cruz celebrated the decision as a “huge victory.”

Cruz previously said he thought the Texas exception to save the life of a pregnant mother still applied. This week he repeated the situation again. He called the deaths of Crain and Barnica “heartbreaking” in an interview with The Houston Chronicle and said life-saving procedures are legal in Texas.

Many mothers reported that, after the government’s abortion ban went into effect, they were unable to get the health services they needed for their medically complicated pregnancies. .

Last year, state lawmakers passed a law allowing abortions for people with ectopic pregnancy, an unviable form of pregnancy in which a baby develops outside the womb, as well as when the patient’s water breaks before the baby can survive.

The doctors who signed the letter said they want to see a change in the state law.

“Texas needs a change. A change in the laws. A change in the way we make medical decisions that should be between the patient, their family and their doctor.”