Courier News

‘I Don’t Want To Die’: Texas Patients Are Afraid to Get Pregnant

PUBLISHED 7/15/2026 by

The fear of losing their lives is precisely what many pregnant Texas residents say they’ve experienced after four young women died in the state when they were unable to access medically necessary abortions.

Three died while doctors delayed their care for hours as they miscarried. Another, Tierra Walker, was 20 weeks pregnant and suffered from soaring blood pressure that had required multiple hospitalizations, yet was given no option for what would have been a lifesaving abortion by any of the 90 doctors who examined her.

She died in bed of preeclampsia, a serious, persistent high blood pressure disorder, and was found by her son on his 14th birthday.

Two of the dead women were also already moms, while another, Nevaeh Crain, was just 18 and expecting her first baby when she died of an infection while miscarrying. Crain had been sent home by two hospitals in the hours before her death, and a third delayed care while they waited to confirm that her fetus had no heartbeat.

These deaths and near-deaths have created an atmosphere where “100% of my patients are afraid” of experiencing complications in their pregnancies, said Dallas OB-GYN Dr. Austin Dennard. “It’s an extra stress to every stage of pregnancy. These laws are stealing the joy out of pregnancy.”

“Women are afraid to get pregnant in Texas. There is a pervasive unease with pregnancy. Women in their 40s with high-risk pregnancies are very afraid. Those pregnancies are fraught with difficulties,” she said.

‘Protesters Spit on Us’: Why This Wisconsin Abortion Clinic Escort Won’t Back Down

PUBLISHED 6/21/2026 by

Molly (last name withheld for privacy), a 35-year-old clinic escort, says they will not be deterred from helping patients get the care they need at a Milwaukee clinic that provides abortions.

Molly outlines the current landscape of threats facing providers, the history that informs this moment, and what is at stake when violence against reproductive healthcare workers is minimized or ignored.

“Being an abortion escort appealed to me because I would be able to interact with people who were coming to the clinic to receive an abortion and give them support. …

“Abortion clinic escorts are doing de-escalation with radicalized people, and we have no weapons. We are a unique group of people with strong de-escalation training. … When I train new escorts, I tell them the names of some of our regular protesters: ‘This is Joe. This is Sam.’ I think names hold a lot of power, and if you know someone’s name, it takes away some of the fear. …

“I tell new escorts to approach a car slowly. Sometimes people arrive early and want to sit and take a breath. Sometimes they have children with them and are getting situated. … Then as they walk into the clinic, stand between them and the people shouting on the sidewalk to act as a physical sound barrier.

“What’s kept me coming back to this work is the other clinic escorts, who are all passionate about reproductive rights. You make incredible friends and build strong bonds when you spend so much time together. I advise other escorts, especially new people, to practice self-care after a shift. It’s not normal to be yelled at for hours. We get called ‘harlots,’ ‘jezebels’ and ‘sinners,’ so I encourage decompression time. Everybody has their own post-clinic ritual for self-centering. … I usually come home and do some baking. …

“I think the protesters believe we escorts have very sad lives. But I get to go home to a happy, loving place and a freshly cooked meal with my husband and two dogs.”

‘Nope, You’re Fine’: This Black Doctor Nearly Died After Giving Birth in Reno

PUBLISHED 6/16/2026 by

A first-person account from Dr. Bayo Curry-Winchell, a Black family physician and the medical director for Saint Mary’s Urgent Care Group in Reno, Nevada. Curry-Winchell nearly died after giving birth by C-section at her own hospital after repeated warnings that something was seriously wrong were dismissed. Her story—shared with writer Bonnie Fuller—underscores the stark realities of America’s maternal mortality crisis, which disproportionately endangers Black women regardless of education or income.

“I was 38 and had just delivered my second baby, a little girl, at the Reno hospital where I was a medical director at the time. …

“I remember holding my new daughter in the recovery room, then being wheeled into my hospital room. That’s when I started feeling like something wasn’t right. I didn’t feel like myself. I was having a hard time talking, and I was in a lot of pain. …

“I wasn’t capable of using my medical training in that moment. But I had to do something. I handed my phone to my husband, James, and told him to call my OB-GYN right away. … Dr. Jack believed him and came right back to the hospital. …

“It turned out that I still had retained products, including placenta and fetal tissue, in my uterus. Unfortunately, this can happen sometimes, especially after a prior C-section. I also was bleeding internally. I had lost so much blood, I had to have a transfusion. …

“American Black women have a very high maternal mortality rate, and I lived it myself. If my doctor had not believed my husband and me and returned to care for me, I would have been like other Black women you hear about passing away after giving birth.”

Right-Wing ‘Tradwife’ Influencers Are Telling Young Women Lies About Birth Control

PUBLISHED 4/20/2026 by

Cancer. Infertility. Unintended abortion.

These are just a few of the fears young patients bring to Dr. Bayo Curry-Winchell, a family physician in Reno, Nevada.

Curry-Winchell, medical director for the Saint Mary’s Urgent Care Group, said the trend away from hormonal birth control has become pervasive in recent years among her patients between about 14 and 32 years old—the same age group most likely to say they get their health information from social media.

When she talks with young patients, Curry-Winchell hears concerns about sinister long-term impacts of hormonal birth control—and the language often echoes conservative influencers who have no medical training.

Doctors say what is at stake is not whether every patient chooses the pill or an IUD, but whether they can make evidence-based decisions about preventing pregnancy in a country with some of the highest maternal mortality rates among wealthy nations.

This Phoenix Dad, Husband and Doctor Just Helped Change Abortion Rules in Arizona

PUBLISHED 4/14/2026 by

What kind of man would sue the state of Arizona on behalf of the women here? Dr. Paul Isaacson.

Thanks to his recent win court (with legal lead the Center for Reproductive Rights), women in Arizona are no longer forced to go through a 24-hour period between scheduling and getting an abortion, which is an outdated practice that suggests women can’t make rational decisions. They also no longer have to listen to state-mandated, antiabortion propaganda before ending a pregnancy.

“All of these requirements were done under the guise of improving healthcare for women, which they did not,” he says. “I can’t imagine a similar situation with anything to do with a man’s health. It felt like we were talking down to women. I think that’s been one of the major drivers for me in being active and challenging these laws, because they are so dishonest.”

Doctors Say Texas’ Abortion Laws Cost a 37-Year-Old Mother Her Life, After 90 Doctors and Months of Crisis

PUBLISHED 2/11/2026 by

Tierra Walker was just 37 years old when her son JJ, 14, found her lying facedown and unresponsive on her bed. As he desperately called 911, he cried, “I need you, I need you,” and tried his best to bring her back to life with CPR, following the instructions of the emergency operator. It was too late. He lost his mother and best friend on his birthday.

Walker died at 20 weeks pregnant after multiple ER trips and hospitalizations. She had been examined by 90 doctors, including 21 OB-GYNs, during the previous months. Yet not one of those 90 medical experts Walker met with ever suggested that she do the only thing that could have definitively saved her life—undergo an abortion to end the pregnancy.

One doctor interviewed for this story sums up the chilling stakes Walker faced as she pleaded with dozens of doctors for care as her condition spiraled. “It’s unfortunate she didn’t come upon a physician who was willing to stick their neck out,” despite the legal risks. In Texas, that’s exactly what it takes to keep a patient like Tierra Walker alive.

As Wisconsin Democrats Push First-Ever Pregnancy Loss Protections, State Republicans Advance Embryo ‘Personhood’

PUBLISHED 1/17/2026 by

In late 2025, Wisconsin Senate Republicans passed SB553, a bill that defines embryos, fertilized eggs and fetuses as “unborn children” and “human beings” from the moment of fertilization. The bill passed with the support of every Republican senator and opposition from all Democrats. SB 553 also attempts to redefine the word “abortion,” asserting that a termination performed to prevent the death of a pregnant woman is not an abortion if it is not “designed or intended to kill the unborn child.”

Doctors also warn that SB 553 quietly functions as a personhood law by stating that once an egg is a human being from the moment of fertilization. By granting fertilized eggs status as human beings, the bill is giving those eggs legal rights which are equal to those of their pregnant mothers. While Gov. Tony Evers has said he will veto the bill if it reaches his desk, Wisconsin state Sen. Kelda Roys says its passage reveals Republican lawmakers’ intent.

Roys recently introduced the Pregnancy Loss Protection Act, the first bill of its kind in Wisconsin. Its goal is to prevent overzealous prosecutors or law enforcement officers from targeting people who experience miscarriage or stillbirth, while also pushing back against a broader Republican effort to confer legal personhood on embryos from the moment of fertilization.

I’m a Texan. But I Don’t Know if I Can Be a Texas OB-GYN.

PUBLISHED 1/6/2026 by

Mary (not her real name) tells her story to Bonnie Fuller:

“Texans don’t give up easily, and I’m a Texan. I’m in my second year of medical school in Texas, and I’m studying to be an OB-GYN.

“I grew up in Texas, and I’m open-minded about staying in the state to practice obstetrics and gynecology after I graduate, despite the laws that ban most abortions from conception. A lot of the people that I love are in Texas, and there’s this big draw to stay here because it’s my community. I really want to care for other women.

“But what worries me most about practicing here is that I won’t be able to provide certain types of care because of the laws. I worry about the moral distress I’ll feel if I’m unable to act in particular cases—especially in emergency situations when a woman might need a termination and the law says that you can’t do one.”

Greg Abbott Vows to Put Turning Point USA Chapters in All Texas Schools

PUBLISHED 12/17/2025 by

Texas has officially launched a partnership with Turning Point USA—an organization that advocates for far-right, conservative politics co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk—to create chapters on every high school and college campus in the state. 

But petitions calling for the removal of Turning Point chapters in public schools across the country have emerged, and higher education faculty in Texas are facing harassment thanks to the organization’s watchlist targeting instructors it claims have views contrary to Turning Point’s.

Although conservatives praise TPUSA as a champion of free speech, critics say that the group not only targets LGBTQ+ people, women, people of color and educators, but that Abbott and Patrick are focusing on the wrong issues.

“Do you know what I’d like to see on every high school campus in Texas? Water fountains without lead in them. Qualified, certified teachers in every classroom. Gun safety measures that would make sure our kids came home at the end of the day,” said Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers. “Instead, the governor and lieutenant governor are directing their resources and the entire state apparatus to put their fingers on the scale for one organization while fighting tooth and nail to keep others off campus.”

“Gov. Abbott praises clubs like these as champions of ‘religious freedom’ and ‘free speech,’ yet in the same breath, he targets student groups he disagrees with,” said Felicia Martin, executive director of the Texas Freedom Network.

Her Pregnancy Wasn’t Viable. Wisconsin’s Laws Still Made Her Fight for an Abortion.

PUBLISHED 11/18/2025 by

Abortion may be legal in Wisconsin, but the hurdles still involved forced mom Gracie Ladd, 33, to flee the state anyway.

“He recommended terminating the pregnancy because I was so low on amniotic fluid that Connor would most likely pass away before birth, which would put me at serious risk for infection. … I was aware Wisconsin had an abortion ban, but I was shocked to learn only two hospitals would do D&Es for someone 20 weeks pregnant.

“There was so much nonsense just for a woman to get essential care. …

“I received a huge amount of support from many people, even those I didn’t expect. That opened a door for me to use this experience to help other moms. … When Roe v. Wade fell, I wondered, ‘How do I help?’ But I felt insignificant, like my voice wouldn’t matter. But after this happened with Connor, it gave me a way to get involved and a reason to speak out about how abortion is healthcare.”