On a whim last December, I decided to create a “Texas Hates Mothers and Children Advent Calendar” on Bluesky, the social media app where millions ended up after Elon Musk turned X (formerly Twitter) into a hate-filled disaster. In the spirit of a season that revolves around mother and child, I posted a not-so-fun fact every day from December 1 to December 25 about the many ways that the State of Texas has shown its total disregard for the well-being of women and children. I knew it would be easy to come up with the first dozen posts but was unpleasantly surprised to learn that I would have needed more than 25 days to really capture how bad things are.
Although Texas likes to boast that it is a land of prosperity and freedom, it isn’t a place where it is safe to be a woman or a child. Many of the facts I highlighted in this calendar are the product of the Texas GOP’s “pro-life” war on abortion. But the reality is that the Texas GOP doesn’t care one whit about babies or their mothers. At best, the conservatives that run the state are “pro-birth;” at worst, they are misogynists. The facts speak for themselves.
Day 1: ’Tis the season to celebrate Mother and Child. Welcome to Day 1 of my “Texas hates mothers and children” Advent Calendar. Maternal Mortality Review Commission votes to skip two years after abortion ban.
Day 2: The maternal mortality rate has increased 56% since Texas effectively did away with legal abortion in 2021 through the SB 8 bounty hunter law.
Day 3: Since SB 8 ended most abortion in Texas, the infant mortality rate has increased almost 13% (compared to 1.8% nationally).
Day 4: Almost half of the counties in Texas have no maternity care—prenatal care or a hospital to deliver a baby (that many women are now forced to have).
Day 5: Texas gives $140 million a year to crisis pregnancy centers, which use deception and more to coerce women not to have abortions while providing few if any services.
Day 6: Most of the crisis pregnancy centers ($140 million per year from Texas, see Day 5) in the state advertise “abortion reversal”—an unproven, unscientific ruse to confuse and scare medication abortion patients.
Day 7: Texas has the highest rate in the country of uninsured adult women—23% vs. 10.9% nationwide vs. 2% in Massachusetts.
Day 8: Texas has the highest repeat teen birth rate in the nation. Poor/no sex ed + abortion ban + minors need parental consent for birth control even if already a parent.
Day 9: Texas has the lowest income cap for Medicaid eligibility in the country. Parents with a child are too RICH for Medicaid if they earn more than 17% of the federal poverty level.
Day 10: Texas ranks second-to-last (thanks, Mississippi!) in women’s health and reproductive care.
Day 11: Texas is one of only 4 states that never lets a minor access prescription contraceptives without parental consent.
Day 12: A baby is born to a Texas teen every 25 minutes, a rate that is 50% higher than the national average. Those young parents have fewer supports in Texas than virtually every other state (see prior posts).
Day 13: AG Ken Paxton sues NY doctor for providing medication abortion to Texas patient via telehealth—fully in compliance with NY law. Texas wants everyone to kill women at the same rate it does.
Day 14: Texas had more pregnancies caused by rape than any other state that banned abortion after Dobbs—26,000 in only 18 months. No rape or incest exception to ban.
Day 15: Public schools are not required to teach sex ed; 25% do not. Only 16% teach anything other than abstinence. The State Board of Education voted not to add discussions of consent or sexuality to the curriculum.
Day 16: At least 1.7 million women in Texas live in contraceptive deserts and lack reasonable access to family planning providers and services.
Day 17: The abortion ban has made every pregnancy more dangerous—sometimes lethally so. The government has refused to take any steps to prevent tragedies like this one.
Day 18: Texas has spent millions in legal fees defending its failure to keep children in foster care safe—litigation that has gone on for fourteen years.
Day 19: In 2023, 35,000 women left Texas to seek abortion care in another state. Just think about the burden implicit in that number.
Day 20: Texas had more school shootings than any other state in 2024, yet every change to gun laws in recent years has been to lift restrictions.
Day 21: Texas opts out of USDA program to provide low-income students with free lunch over the summer.
Day 22: Despite federal funding that allowed some states to reduce backlog of untested rape kits to zero, the rate of untested kits in Texas increased by 45% from 2021 to 2022.
Day 23: Texas ranks third from last in women’s health quality and prevention based on c-section rate for low-risk pregnancies, prenatal and postpartum care, preventative services, and mental health screenings.
Day 24: No room at the inn. Sixty percent of rural hospitals in Texas do not deliver babies, and maternal mortality increases with the distance to the nearest hospital with obstetric services.
Day 25: A recap. Texas ranks high the bad things—maternal & infant mortality, repeat teen births, rape-induced pregnancies, e.g.—and low on the good things like access to prenatal care, contraception, & sex ed. There’s nothing “pro-life” here.
Do better, Texas.