The family of a Texas woman who died after repeatedly being denied an abortion, despite having severe and prolonged pregnancy complications, is suing Attorney General Ken Paxton, the head of the Texas Medical Board and the hospitals that treated her.
The mother, son, widower and estate of 37-year-old Tierra Walker allege in a 65-page complaint that her providers showed “deliberate indifference, discrimination, and medical mistreatment,” and that the Texas abortion ban they were operating under — which bans almost all abortions with narrow exceptions for patients’ life and health, and which Paxton has vigorously defended — “intimidates doctors into inaction and breeds extreme fear among Texas’s medical establishment.”
In the wrongful death lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Bexar County District Court, Walker’s survivors allege that officials and medical providers repeatedly denied her requests for an abortion while she experienced pregnancy complications including seizures, hypertension and preeclampsia.
“For months, Ms. Walker had been asking for termination of her pregnancy — even though this was a wanted pregnancy — because she did not think she would survive the pregnancy. Tragically, she was right,” the complaint states. “An abortion at any point during her pregnancy would have saved her life.”
Walker’s case was recounted in depth by ProPublica in a report published last November. Based on 6,500 pages of medical records, the report found that while more than 90 doctors were involved in her care, including 21 OB-GYNs, none offered her the option of getting an abortion.
Providers in Texas who violate the state abortion ban can face a first- or second-degree felony charge, lose their medical license and face a minimum of $100,000 in fines.
The medical examiner concluded that when Walker died in December 2024, she was four months into her pregnancy as a result of “hypertensive cardiovascular disease with superimposed preeclampsia,” according to the lawsuit, which notes that her teenage son found her body on his birthday.
In addition to Paxton, the complaint names as defendants the executive director of the Texas Medical Board, Stephen Brint Carlton; the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio; University Health, the hospital system where she received care; three of the individual doctors who treated her; and Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales.
Paxton, who is being sued as an individual and as attorney general, is also the Texas GOP’s nominee for U.S. Senate in November’s midterm elections. Neither his campaign nor the attorney general’s office immediately returned email messages that MS NOW left Wednesday.
A spokesperson for University Health said the system does not comment on pending litigation and does not disclose information about individual patients’ care without appropriate authorization.
“In general, our clinicians make patient care decisions based on each patient’s clinical condition, applicable medical standards and legal requirements,” the hospital said in its statement. “We take concerns about patient care seriously and review them through appropriate internal clinical and quality processes.”
A spokesperson for the Texas Medical Board told MS NOW the board could not comment on pending litigation.
Spokespeople for the other defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment from MS NOW.
The family is seeking monetary damages as well as a court ruling that the state’s abortion ban violates the Texas Constitution. The family also alleges that Walker’s providers violated the Americans With Disabilities Act and a federal law that mandates emergency rooms provide stabilizing treatment to people in need, including those needing abortions.
“The basic principle here is you cannot take away someone’s life, as a state, and not be held liable for doing so,” said one of the family’s attorneys, Molly Duane.
Duane is the litigation director at Amplify Legal, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization affiliated with Abortion in America, an abortion rights nonprofit co-founded by a former Planned Parenthood president, the late Cecile Richards.
On a call with reporters on Wednesday, Duane said Walker could not travel out of state for the procedure because of how ill she was during her pregnancy. Her aunt, LaTanya Walker, added that they had considered ordering abortion pills by mail but that she got “cold feet.”
“I felt now that I probably should’ve,” she added.
Last year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a first-of-its-kind law allowing private citizens to pursue civil cases against anyone who “manufactures, distributes, mails, transports, delivers, prescribes, or provides” abortion pills to Texas residents. The pills remain available, and providers have continued to send them into the state, so Republicans have ramped up attacks on the pills, which are used in a majority of abortions nationwide.
Paxton has sued at least two out-of-state providers who have mailed abortion pills into Texas.
The Walker family’s lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to the state’s abortion ban, considered one of the strictest in the country. ProPublica has published stories on three other Texas women — Josseli Barnica, Nevaeh Crain and Porsha Ngumezi — who died after they were denied abortions while experiencing pregnancy complications.
Following that reporting, last year Abbott signed into law a bill that aimed to clarify the exceptions under which doctors could perform abortion without facing legal consequences.
In an interview on “CBS Mornings” on Wednesday, LaTanya Walker said her message for Paxton is “Go to hell. You killed my niece.”
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