Three Texas doctors whose pregnant patients died are facing consequences not for attempting to intervene and save the mother’s life, but for delaying or failing to provide the appropriate care.

The Texas Medical Board ordered each doctor to take eight hours of continuing education courses after determining that the substandard care they provided led to the deaths of their patients.

Two of the doctors sanctioned by the Texas Medical Board, Dr. Ali Mohamed Osman and Dr. William Noel Hawkins, were cited in relation to the case of 18-year-old Nevaeh Crain, a pregnant woman who died in 2023 due to pregnancy complications that occurred when she was six months pregnant. 

The board also cited Dr. Andrew Ryan Davis after his patient, Porsha Ngumezi, died in 2023 after bleeding heavily during a miscarriage at 11 weeks. 

On Monday, Amy O’Donnell, the executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, issued a statement praising the Texas Medical Board for its actions against the three doctors. 

“The deaths of Porsha Ngumezi and Nevaeh Crain were heartbreaking tragedies that should not have occurred,” O’Donnell said. “Texas pro-life laws have always allowed physicians to act swiftly using their reasonable medical judgment to save a mother’s life or protect her from serious bodily harm. These doctors had the legal authority and medical duty to intervene. The Board’s actions show the shortcoming was not in the statute, but in its execution.”

In a statement on Friday shared by ProPublica, Michelle Maloney, an attorney representing the families of both patients in malpractice lawsuits, indicated that she was pleased by the medical board’s actions. 

“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,” she said.

In its reporting on the two pregnant women’s deaths, ProPublica made the case that Texas’ near-complete ban on abortion, which includes exceptions for saving the life of the mother and went into effect in 2022, made the doctors reluctant to provide care to Crain and Ngumezi, suggesting that the medical professionals didn’t understand it and feared facing criminal penalties. 

A ProPublica spokesperson told The Christian Post that the outlet stands by its reporting, stating:

"ProPublica does not purport to know what the physicians were thinking in the cases of Porsha Ngumezi and Nevaeh Crain, though we have repeatedly asked these doctors for comment," the spokesperson said, claiming that the nonprofit outlet has continued to find evidence that the law in Texas  "has impacted patient care and outcomes." 

"When ProPublica first investigated these and other cases in 2024, more than 100 Texas OB-GYNs authored a public letter saying the state’s abortion ban impeded their ability to provide lifesaving care," the representative for ProPublica stated. "Lawmakers responded with reforms." 

The public letter signed by more than 100 OB-GYNs that ProPublica cites points to ProPublica's own reporting to claim that the "evidence is clear" that the "nature of the strict abortion ban in Texas does not allow us as medical professionals to do our job."

Allison Gilbert, who is listed in the letter as an OB-GYN in Dallas, is an abortion provider who previously served as the medical director of Southwestern Women’s Surgery Center, an abortion facility that performed abortions up to 21 weeks.

As is the case with multiple abortion businesses throughout the country, the Southwestern Women's Surgery Center closed its doors in 2023, the year after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization stated that abortion is not a constitutional right. 

Regarding the claim that Texas’ abortion law blocks doctors from providing lifesaving care, pro-life advocates have noted that the law states that doctors are allowed to intervene during medical emergencies. The law also defines “abortion” as “the act of using or prescribing an instrument, a drug, a medicine, or any other substance, device, or means with the intent to cause the death of an unborn child of a woman known to be pregnant.”

The law states that acts done for the purpose of saving the mother’s life or preserving the health of her child, the removal of an ectopic pregnancy or the remains of an unborn child after a miscarriage, are not legally considered an abortion. 

In a statement to The Christian Post, Monica Snyder, the executive director of Secular Pro-Life, said that neither the Ngumezi case nor the Crain case is an example of a doctor being too afraid to provide care in a state with a near-total ban on abortion. 

“ProPublica laments that Texas didn't sanction doctors for failing to provide medically necessary abortions, but each doctor's malpractice wasn't about failure to provide abortion,” Snyder told CP. 

Regarding the outlet's reporting on the medical board's actions, the ProPublica spokesperson told CP that it had reported that abortion rights advocates said the board "could have done this or more."

Snyder also said that the argument that Davis was afraid of violating Texas’ abortion law is “strange” as he gave her misoprostol, a drug that is part of the abortion pill regimen, to help complete her miscarriage.  

“In Ngumezi's case, Davis failed to provide a [Dilation and Curettage] but did administer abortion pills, and in Crain's case, Hawkins failed to treat a clear infection that, had it been properly treated, may not have required ending the pregnancy at all,” the pro-life advocate explained. 

Before her death, Crain visited two hospitals on three separate occasions, including Osman at Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas and Hawkins at Christus Southeast Texas St. Elizabeth Hospital.

It is currently unknown whether the Texas Medical Board investigated Dr. Marcelo Totorica, who saw Crain at her third visit to Christus. The Texas Medical Board did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment on the matter. 

During the first visit to the emergency room, Osman neglected to investigate Crain’s stomach cramps and sent her home. When she visited the emergency room a second time, Hawkins discharged her, even though she had a high fever and had tested positive for sepsis. Crain’s unborn child also had an abnormal heart rate at the time. 

“Bad doctors existed before Dobbs and continue to exist after,” Snyder added. “We're glad to see the Texas Medical Board take action, and to cite the real reasons these women's deaths were preventable.”

News Source : https://www.christianpost.com/news/texas-doctors-disciplined-over-pregnant-womens-deaths.html