When a pregnancy becomes a medical emergency, every hour counts. But in Texas, some doctors have held back treatment while patients grew sicker, afraid that acting could cost them their license or send them to prison. Congress must make clear that federal law protects emergency care for pregnant patients in every state, and both candidates in the Texas Senate race should say publicly whether they will back that protection.

Josseli Barnica was 17 weeks pregnant and already miscarrying when she went to a Houston hospital in 2021. Her husband told ProPublica that she was told doctors had to wait until the fetal heartbeat stopped. She waited 40 hours, then died days later from sepsis. Medical experts told ProPublica her death was preventable.

In San Antonio, Tierra Walker developed preeclampsia, a dangerous blood pressure disorder, and died from it. ProPublica reported that none of the 90 physicians who treated her offered to end the pregnancy, even when she asked whether that could protect her health.

A federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), requires hospitals that receive federal funding to stabilize every patient in an emergency. After Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued, a federal appeals court blocked guidance telling doctors that this duty can include emergency abortion care in Texas. That guidance has since been withdrawn nationwide, and the U.S. Supreme Court has never settled the question. The fallout spread to Idaho, where the largest hospital system said it had to fly six patients out of state for care in just three months.

Paxton is now running for the U.S. Senate against James Talarico. Whatever voters believe about abortion, a woman who is septic or hemorrhaging should get care before it is too late, and doctors, not lawyers, should make that call.

Sign the petition to tell Congress and both Texas Senate candidates to guarantee emergency care for pregnant women before another preventable death.