Stricter Texas abortion laws went into effect after the Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs decision, effectively overturning Roe v. Wade. That was more than two years ago, and some of the impacts have been immediate, like people traveling out of state to try to access abortions.
Other effects have been harder to track. Recent reporting revealed that two deaths are now linked to doctors refusing to provide care.
Many established doctors in Texas have spoken up against the new laws. Some have, in fact, moved their practices. There’s evidence now that doctors in training are also getting out.
Stephania Taladrid wrote about what she has labeled the “Texas OB-GYN Exodus” for The New Yorker, and joined Texas Standard to discuss. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Your story in The New Yorker focused specifically on a program in Edinburg in the Rio Grande Valley. Why were you looking there in particular?
Stephania Taladrid: I decided to focus on the Rio Grande Valley because the region has very high rates of uninsured people and very high poverty rates. So it tells you something about some of the broader problematics women in Texas are facing.
In particular, the program was started by the then-chair of the OB/GYN department at the University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley. It was the first medical school in the region that opened in 2016. And everything was going very well.
He started an open residency program until SB 8 went into effect. That’s when it became very difficult for the doctors that he had recruited from across the country to practice medicine because, as he put it to me, the standard of care could now be construed as a felony. So a lot of the doctors who had followed him to the Rio Grande Valley realized that they could not practice medicine the way that they had trained and they intended to.
By the time that Roe v. Wade was overturned, he had already lost half of his full time faculty to SB 8. And the residency program collapsed within a year because there was a fall out with the hospital. And only one of the residents ultimately decided to start a practice in Texas.
And I think it is worth pointing out that this is not particular to the Valley. Just last month, there was an important report that came out by Manatt Health, which is a consultancy. And it showed that more than 70% of OB/GYNs in Texas said they could no longer treat patients in accordance with evidence based medicine. More than 20% said they were either considering leaving Texas or had already intended to do so. And 13% said that they had decided to retire early.
In addition to that, we know that residency programs have seen a reduction of 16% in applications over the past year. So this is happening across the state.
We’ve reported that doctors are concerned about getting sued, so they’re delaying or denying certain procedures. But you actually found nurses were threatening to sue. Could you say more about that?
Absolutely. Well, you have to remember that there are three different abortion bans in place in Texas now. And one of them, SB 8, has a provision which encourages civilians to sue anyone suspected of aiding and abetting an abortion in exchange for a $10,000 reward.
And so, yes, [UTRGV program chair, Dr. Tony] Ogburn told us that all of a sudden he had nurses threatening him and his colleagues for, for instance, terminating the pregnancy of a patient whom they believe was at risk of dying. And so he decided to start meeting with patients behind closed doors as a result.
And so, again, the way that doctors are practicing medicine in Texas is changing as a result of these laws.
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Were there particular instances of treatment delayed or denied that stuck with you in the course of your reporting?
Well, we talk about the case of a woman. Her name is Vanessa Garcia, who has a miscarriage in the second trimester and is sent home to manage her miscarriage, when really the recommended treatment at that point is either a D&E [dilation and evacuation] or an induction of labor. And it’s not until her case lands on Ogburn’s desk that he ultimately moves forward with one of those procedures.
But really, the list of conditions that doctors can treat have narrowed substantially, right? I mean, lethal fetal anomalies are out of the question. So patients have had to carry those pregnancies to term only to see their babies die within seconds. And that is something that the doctor is also witnessing and experiencing with the patient, right?
PPROMS, or premature ruptures of membranes, also are going untreated. And there are even anesthesiologists in this piece who refuse to treat life threatening complications, such as ectopic pregnancy.
So it is really a range of conditions that we’re talking about here.
