Amid the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee’s first meeting since announcing the report’s delay, Texans gathered to uplift stories of the state’s maternal health crisis

A recording of today’s press event can be found here, and pictures of the press event and “People’s Hearing” can be found here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 25, 2026

CONTACT:
Emily Witt (she/her), Avow Texas, [email protected]

AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Women’s Health Caucus, birth justice advocates, reproductive rights organizers, public health experts, and community members today held a press conference and “People’s Hearing” as the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee (MMMRC) held a closed meeting that did not offer the opportunity for Texans to testify.

The closed MMMRC meeting was the first since the announcement that the committee’s biennial report — which was due for public release on September 1 — will be delayed until after the 2026 Midterm Election.

For reproductive health advocates, these delays and omissions of crucial years of data illustrate a need for accountability from both the committee and the Texas Department of State Health Services, as well as a need to prioritize the lives of Texans above political pressure or agenda.

During the press conference and “People’s Hearing,” community members shared testimony directed at the committee, connected through personal storytelling, and urged the immediate release of a report that captures the full picture of Texas’ maternal health crisis by including data from 2022-2024.

In a state where a maternal health crisis is stealing the lives of our mothers, wives, sisters, aunts, neighbors, friends, and community members — mothers like Tierra Walker and Porsha Ngumezi, who died preventable deaths after being denied lifesaving healthcare — this report’s data is vital to enacting urgent changes in Texas’ reproductive healthcare landscape to save the lives of pregnant Texans.

The Reality of Texas’ Maternal Health Crisis:

• Black pregnant Texans are 2.5 to 3 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white Texans

Since 2021:

• Maternal deaths in Texas have increased by 56%
• Sepsis rates have risen by 50%
• Infant mortality has gone up by 13%
  

“[My wife] Porsha died in 2023 due to a delay in care. She needed a D&C, and that basic care was not provided when she needed it. Since losing her, I’ve been advocating for her through storytelling because I don’t want what happened to my family to happen to another family. That’s why the decision by the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee not to review the pregnancy-related death cases from 2022 and 2023 is personal to me. My wife died in 2023,” said Hope Ngumezi (he/him), husband of Porsha Ngumezi, a Texas mother who passed away after a lifesaving D&C was delayed due to Texas’ abortion ban. “But for me, this goes beyond what happened to Porsha. I think about our boys. One day they may have families of their own, and I hope by then we’ve done the work needed to understand where the system failed and what needs to change so their families don’t have to experience what ours did. That’s why I believe the deaths from 2022 and 2023 need to be reviewed. If there are lessons in those cases that could help prevent another pregnancy-related death, then we need to learn from them. My wife was one of those women. Her name was Porsha Ngumezi. Her life mattered. Her story mattered. And we owe it to her and every woman we lost during those years to find out what went wrong and do the work needed to fix it.”

“We are here today because we will not stand idly by while you sacrifice the living and curse the dead. Tierra, Hope, Neveah, Maria… The numbers have names,” said Nakeenya Wilson (she/her), Maternal Health Equity Collaborative Community Leader & Former MMMRC Committee Member. “As a former member of the MMMRC Committee, I know how all of this works. The report is complete. No preliminary findings — a final report with two completed cohorts of data and recommendations. But… one of those cohorts happens to be 2024, the first year of maternal deaths reviewed since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. 2024, the same year I was kicked off the committee and replaced by an anti-abortion doctor. We are here today to Demand that you give Texans what they are due and release the report.”

“For Black women and other communities experiencing the greatest disparities in maternal health outcomes, delay is not neutral. A delay in information can become a delay in policy. A delay in policy can become a delay in resources, services, treatment, and protection,” said Shades of Blue Executive Director Kay Matthews. “Behind every statistic is a mother. Behind every recommendation is a family that has already experienced loss, trauma, or a life-altering complication. Their experiences deserve more than acknowledgment after the fact. They demand timely action.”

“Texas’ Maternal Mortality Committee announced it would not be reviewing maternal deaths from 2022 and 2023 — the first two years since Roe v. Wade’s overturn — to ‘offer more timely recommendations.’ But as time passes, the headlines, the stories, and deaths offer a clear picture of what abortion and Black birth advocates have known all along,” said Avow Texas Chief Executive Officer raven e. Freeborn (they/them). “Texas’s abortion bans have a chilling effect on medical care: By prioritizing the state’s standard of refusal, licensed medical professionals abandon their duty of care, with fatal consequences. When Tierra, already a mother to her eldest son, JJ, age 14, asked doctors to consider her life, given the co-occurring morbidities, the determination was made that her pregnancy was not in an emergency state, only her health. While parents who seek abortions have always made caring decisions in consideration of their capacity, Texas’ abortion bans now force them to confront their potential incapacitation — the risk of being unable to parent their children due to maternal death caused by abortion care denial. That is a reproductive injustice we should all refuse to accept.”

“The role of the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee is to review cases of maternal death and injury across the state and report their findings. By delaying their most recent report and refusing to release data from 2022 and 2023, they are not only preventing lifesaving information from being made public, but they are also refusing to honor the lives lost and forever changed, like Porsha Ngumezi and her grieving family. As a Black mom in Texas, Porsha’s story could so easily be my own,” said Serita Fontanesi, Integrated Voter Engagement Director at URGE: Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity. “I am grateful to be here and in a position to advocate for her and the other lives lost due to lack of timely medical care. The time for transparency is now: release the report, honor lives lost, and give Texas families the information and action they deserve — before another family is forced to grieve another preventable death.”

“I’ve stood beside families during pregnancy and birth, and I know reproductive wellbeing doesn’t begin or end in a hospital room. The care someone receives matters. So do the policies that shape their options, the resources available to their family, and whether anyone takes their concerns seriously. That is why today matters,” said Women Healing & Empowering Women (WHEW) Advocate Jamesha Bodwell. “Texans deserve timely, complete information about maternal deaths and severe complications. We deserve to know what is happening, who is being affected, and what can be done to prevent further harm. Closing a hearing to the public shuts those voices out when they should be part of the conversation. Reproductive justice takes whole communities.”

“The Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee is supposed to be a technical, nonpartisan body, but it’s been deeply politicized and forced into inaction,” said Dinah Waranch (she/her), Midwife & Maternal Health Advocate. “It’s clear from what we are able to know from the work of the MMMRC that the Texas crisis in women’s health is not a problem of individual clinicians. It’s not a problem of patient self-advocacy. It is a complex system problem that must be addressed from multiple vantage points. The voice of the midwife in this conversation is a vital one. And the voice of the public, the women of Texas, is more important still.”

“The state slow-walking this report is unacceptable. The Committee has been telling the public all year that this report would be available as expected on September 1st,” said Veronikah Warms, Policy Attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project. “Releasing the report in December denies the public the information needed to make informed choices on candidates in November and robs elected officials of time to analyze the data and draft laws to address our abysmal maternal mortality rate.”

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The Maternal Health Equity Collaborative (mhecatx.org) aims to make birth safer for Black and Brown families by building community and using our collective power to create lasting change rooted in birth justice and equity.

Avow Texas (avowtexas.org) is unapologetically pro-abortion. Together, we’re building our power for reproductive justice-centered governance and transforming Texas into a place where every person is trusted, thriving, and free to pursue the life they want.

URGE (urge.org) organizes our communities, provides a political home for young people, advocates for meaningful policy change, and shifts culture, working in states where the challenges and opportunities are greatest.