A lawsuit is targeting Texas’ law against abortion, saying a 37-year-old woman was a casualty of the law — but pro-life physicians disagree.
Tierra Walker, 37, died of preeclampsia in December 2024 after multiple hospitalizations due to her high-risk pregnancy. She suffered from high blood pressure, seizures, severe pain, and deep vein thrombosis. Two days before she died, doctors sent her home from the emergency room, saying that she was “stable enough.”
Her family has since filed a lawsuit dated Sept. 15 against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as well as Walker’s doctors, the Texas Medical Board, and the University of Texas health system, claiming that she was denied an abortion that could have saved her life, and blaming Texas’s abortion law for her death.
“Tierra Walker is dead and those responsible must be held accountable,” the complaint begins. “At every turn, Texas’s political and medical establishments not only failed but actively harmed Ms. Walker.”
Texas law allows abortions to save the life of the mother; all pro-life states in the U.S. make this exception. Responding to claims that the pro-life law is to blame, pro-life leaders contend that the tragedy was caused by a failure of the medical system.
The head of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians And Gynecologists (AAPLOG), Dr. Christina Francis, says that Walker likely would have survived if she had been given standard medical care — care that is already legal in Texas.
“My heart goes out to Ms. Walkerʼs family, and I hope that this devastating loss is a wake-up call to the medical community and our society to invest in better maternal health care,” Francis told EWTN News.
“The tragic death of Tierra Walker highlights significant problems in maternity care in the United States today, including poor healthcare coordination and insufficiently treating severe medical conditions,” Francis said. “As healthcare professionals, we take an oath to care for our patients, even when it requires extensive hospitalization and extended monitoring.”
“Her death was likely preventable and the result of inadequate medical care; it was certainly not the fault of Texas’ abortion law,” Francis said.
Francis said that according to court records Walker “needed coordinated, standards-based medical care.”
“This wouldʼve included controlling her blood pressure more aggressively, diagnostic testing that appeared to be erroneously denied, and continued hospitalization until her condition stabilized,” said Francis.
“Preeclampsia at 20 weeks of pregnancy is, by definition, severe,” Francis said. “If Ms. Walker had been stabilized immediately and then delivered rather than being sent home, she would likely still be alive today. Texas law would have allowed this standard medical care.”
“Induced abortion is not a blanket solution,” Francis said. “Better healthcare is.”
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America spokeswoman Kelsey Pritchard cited failure of medical care, and noted that the lawyer in charge of the case has strong pro-abortion-access ties.
“Tierra Walker’s death is tragic and it’s clear there was a failure on multiple levels to provide the high-risk pregnancy care she needed,” Pritchard said. “SBA Pro-Life America has strongly advocated Med Ed policies that make it clear no law anywhere in the country blocks doctors’ duty to act to save lives in pregnancy emergencies.”
“The career pro-abortion activist lawyer behind this lawsuit, who boasts about facilitating an out-of-state abortion on the very same day the Dobbs decision came out, and the inclusion of Senate candidate Ken Paxton give away that there is a political agenda separate from families’ understandable pain and anger,” Pritchard added.
“Attorneys general enforce the law, they don’t make it, but Ken Paxton has vigorously upheld state law protecting both unborn babies and women,” Pritchard said. “Activist lawyers seeking a test case as a pretense to attack the laws is nothing new, it’s how we got Roe v. Wade. That cynical strategy will not succeed in Texas.”
“Abortion activists would rather spread fear about pro-life laws than address complex disparities in care, and their misinformation has consequences that put real women in real danger,” Pritchard said.
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