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Ectopic pregnancy deaths have nearly doubled. It’s worse in states with abortion bans

ProPublica’s analysis of CDC data found that almost 200 women died after an ectopic pregnancy from 2020 to 2025

Published September 13, 2026 6:00AM (EDT)

This article originally appeared on ProPublica.

The number of women who died after an ectopic pregnancy has spiked in recent years, a ProPublica analysis found. The mounting deaths in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data have drawn little scrutiny or response.

Such deaths typically occur in the first trimester, after a pregnancy fails to properly implant in the uterus and begins to develop elsewhere, most commonly inside a fallopian tube. The embryo grows until it causes the organ to rupture, triggering catastrophic bleeding. 

With prompt and appropriate medical care, maternal health experts say, women should not die. Yet ProPublica’s analysis found a stark and baffling increase: Almost 200 women with the condition died from 2020 to 2025, compared with about 100 in the previous six years.

“A death related to ectopic pregnancy should really be a never event,” said Dr. Alice Abernathy, an OB-GYN in Philadelphia.

While chaos and access issues at hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic likely contributed to at least some of the deaths, the surge has persisted, raising serious questions about the role of the most significant disruption to maternal healthcare in the years since: state restrictions on abortion. 

To treat an ectopic pregnancy, which is almost never viable, doctors must terminate it. But lawsuits and federal complaints have alleged that some medical providers are hesitating or flat-out refusing to do that in states where they face criminal penalties for performing an abortion. Patients described their terror. 

“I genuinely thought I was going to die,” said Kyleigh Thurman, whose right fallopian tube ruptured after she struggled to get ectopic care in Texas in 2023.

“There were a few times I asked my husband if I was going to die,” Leitaea Lowrimore of Oklahoma said in a lawsuit after being denied treatment for an ectopic pregnancy at multiple hospitals in February. “I kept thinking about our kids.”

To determine whether these issues go beyond anecdotes, ProPublica analyzed the data collected from every state by the CDC to look for patterns. The analysis shows a growing divide for women in states with strict abortion bans compared with those without.

While the uptick in ectopic deaths occurred nationwide, the climb has been much steeper in states that banned abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. 

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ProPublica shared its analysis with more than a dozen maternal health experts, including leaders in the field, who were unaware of the spike; early pregnancy complications are chronically underresearched.

While they cautioned that abortion bans alone can’t explain the national rise, maternal health experts said any examination of the spike should include the documented delays in care caused by the laws, including for ectopic pregnancies. 

In Thurman’s case, despite clear signs of an ectopic pregnancy, two emergency departments sent her home without resolving the complication. Regulators in 2025 found that one of the hospitals, Ascension Seton Williamson, failed to properly screen Thurman for a suspected ectopic pregnancy and did not call in an OB-GYN, in violation of the hospital’s own policies and federal law that requires emergency departments to treat and stabilize patients........

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