Texas doctors disciplined over pregnant women’s deaths blamed on state’s abortion law
April 24, 2026
The Texas Medical Board is disciplining three Texas doctors whose pregnant patients died, for delaying or failing to provide the appropriate care rather than attempting to intervene and save the mother’s life.
The Christian Post reports that each doctor has been ordered to take eight hours of continuing education courses after it was determined that the substandard care they provided led to the deaths of their patients.
Dr. Ali Mohamed Osman and Dr. William Noel Hawkins, were cited by the Texas Medical Board in relation to the case of 18-year-old Nevaeh Crain, who died in 2023 due to complications that occurred when she was six months pregnant.
Dr. Andrew Ryan Davis also faced discipline, after his patient, Porsha Ngumezi, died in 2023 after bleeding heavily during a miscarriage at 11 weeks.
Amy O’Donnell, the executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, praised the Texas Medical Board for its actions against the three doctors in a statement on Monday, saying, “The deaths of Porsha Ngumezi and Nevaeh Crain were heartbreaking tragedies that should not have occurred.”
O’Donnell added, “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.”
According to the Christian Post, ProPublica had suggested 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, implying that the medical professionals didn’t understand it and feared facing criminal penalties.
Monica Snyder, the executive director of Secular Pro-Life, told the Christian Post 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.
Snyder said, “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.”
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