Ken Paxton Silent as Texas Parents Accuse Him of Letting Their Daughter Die Because of His Extreme Abortion Ban
KSAT: SA family sues Ken Paxton, University Health, others after mother dies mid-pregnancy, lawsuit says
Dallas Morning News: Family of deceased pregnant woman sues Ken Paxton over Texas abortion ban
AUSTIN, TX — A heartbroken family is now suing Ken Paxton for their daughter’s death after she was refused life-saving care under Paxton’s extreme Texas abortion ban, with no exception for rape or incest and sweeping criminal consequences for doctors.
"What [Paxton is] doing in his office is using and abusing his role as attorney general to stoke a culture of fear," says an attorney representing the Walker family. “Texans are dying because of abortion bans and Ken Paxton and the state of Texas are just letting it happen,” said a representative for the family.
Paxton has remained silent when asked for comment from multiple outlets. Tierra Walker passed away in December 2024 after reportedly being denied life-saving medical care multiple times because of Paxton’s draconian enforcement and lawsuit blocking a federal law that protected abortions for people in medical emergencies.
Read for yourself:
September 16, 2026
By Shefali Luthra
The family of a woman who died after she could not get an abortion in Texas is suing doctors and state officials including Attorney General Ken Paxton. It is the first lawsuit over a death linked to an abortion ban.
“It’s horrible that she’s gone and she was taken from us this way. It’s horrible that she’s not here anymore,” said LaTanya Walker, Tierra Walker’s aunt and the lead plaintiff in the case, in a press conference Wednesday. She added: “I want justice for her. I want it to not happen to anyone else. It needs to stop.”
The case, filed Tuesday in state court by a malpractice firm and the abortion rights group Amplify Legal, argues that Texas’ abortion bans violate both the state and U.S. Constitution. This case is also the first to directly sue Paxton, who has taken a leading role in enforcing Texas’ ban. Paxton is locked in a tight race for the U.S. Senate.
“Tierra Walker is dead and those responsible must be held accountable,” the suit reads. “At every turn, Texas’s political and medical establishments not only failed but actively harmed Ms. Walker.”
Walker is one of the numerous women whose deaths have been linked to abortion bans. Other deaths have occurred in North Carolina and Georgia, states with bans less restrictive than Texas’. Texas’ near-total abortion ban provides exceptions only if staying pregnant puts someone “at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.” In 2025 — after Walker’s death — the state passed a law meant to clarify what constitutes a risk of death. But the penalties for violating the state’s ban remain onerous, and many doctors have said it is not obvious what care they can provide or how sick a patient must be before they can intervene.
Walker, whose case was first reported on last year by ProPublica, died December 30, 2024, when she was 37 years old and 20 weeks into her pregnancy. Her medical history of chronic conditions — including diabetes, hypertension, obesity and severe asthma — made her pregnancy particularly high-risk. She was hospitalized multiple times during her pregnancy and repeatedly asked for an abortion. According to the lawsuit, doctors did not give her information on how she could get an abortion, instead dismissing her after telling her “your baby is fine.”
“They just kept saying, ‘It’s not the baby, the baby’s fine,’” LaTanya Walker said.
Walker died days after being discharged from the University of Texas Science Center at San Antonio, also known as the University Health System, according to the lawsuit. Her son discovered her dead on his 15th birthday.
After Walker’s death, a medical examiner ruled that she died of hypertensive cardiovascular disease with preeclampsia, the latter of which is a dangerous pregnancy-related high blood pressure condition that doctors had identified in Walker.
Some Texans have been able to get abortions by leaving the state or ordering abortion medication online. Walker’s illness — which included seizures and frequent hospitalizations — prevented her from traveling out of state, said Molly Duane, one of the family’s attorneys. LaTanya Walker considered ordering abortion pills for her niece, she said, but she ultimately did not because she worried about whether they could exacerbate medical conditions.
“That’s the problem. You should be able to get healthcare from your doctor,” Duane said.
Medical records cited in the suit note that on her last hospital visit, her blood pressure was dangerously high and only temporarily responsive to medication. According to those records, the doctor caring for her at that point, who is a named defendant in the suit, wrote that “delivering the baby” — which would terminate the pregnancy — ”may be the best treatment for preeclampsia.”
Doctors who reviewed the case for ProPublica all told the news outlet that, given Walker’s medical risks, she should have been offered an abortion.
The suit names Paxton and Stephen Brint Carlton, the executive director of the Texas Medical Board, in their official and individual capacities, as well as Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales in his official capacity. It also names the University of Texas Science Center at San Antonio and three of the doctors who cared for Walker.
The 19th reached out to Paxton’s office and Senate campaign, Carlton, the University Health System and the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office for comment, but received no immediate reply.
Paxton has been a staunch defendant of Texas’ abortion ban. In another case, he threatened legal action against anyone who gave an abortion to one woman — despite a court saying she qualified for an exception to the state’s ban. He has also sought to dismiss a case brought by women who had been denied abortions in medical emergencies, and who were pushing for greater clarity over when someone could receive an abortion in Texas.
The plaintiffs, Walker’s family, are seeking a jury trial and pursuing both damages and a judgement finding that Texas’ abortion laws violate the state constitution.
KSAT: SA family sues Ken Paxton, University Health, others after mother dies mid-pregnancy, lawsuit says
August 16, 2026
By Samuel Rocha, Erica Hernandez, and Misael Gomez
The family of a San Antonio mother who died mid-pregnancy from medical complications filed suit Tuesday against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and others, claiming an abortion could have saved her life.
Tierra Walker, 37, died on Dec. 30, 2024, as a result of hypertensive heart disease with superimposed preeclampsia, court documents stated.
The lawsuit said Walker was 20-weeks pregnant at the time of her death.
Paxton, University Health, UT Health San Antonio, doctors and the others were included in the suit because Walker’s attorneys believe they were responsible for the “deliberate indifference, discrimination, and medical mistreatment (that) ultimately caused her horrific and tragic death.”
The lawsuit alleges that Walker and her family told University Health staff that the pregnancy was going to cost Walker her life, and asked for an abortion.
Walker had previously miscarried twins in 2021 due to complications from preeclampsia, the lawsuit stated. She was suffering from repeated seizures, extremely high blood pressure, a serious DVT/blood clot, severe headaches, vomiting and dizziness.
During her last visit at University Health on Dec. 27, 2024, according to the lawsuit, Walker was diagnosed with preeclampsia but was still discharged and sent home.
Three days later, her son, on his birthday, found Walker in bed not breathing.
Dallas Morning News: Family of deceased pregnant woman sues Ken Paxton over Texas abortion ban
September 16, 2026
By Sasha Richie
In 2021, Texas mother Tierra Walker lost twins she was carrying due to preeclampsia, a severe pregnancy-related high blood pressure condition. Three years later, pregnant again, condition worsening and going in and out of the hospital, she begged for an abortion.
“She knew what preeclampsia was, she was terrified of it, and she was telling all of her doctors, ‘My babies died from this, I don’t want to die this time,’” said Michelle Maloney, a medical malpractice attorney representing Walker’s family at a Wednesday news conference.
After being sent home with another preeclampsia diagnosis at 20 weeks pregnant and denied an abortion, Walker was found unresponsive in her bed by her son on his 15th birthday, according to a complaint filed Tuesday in Bexar County District Court. Walker died at age 37, and her family is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and others for her death.
“Tiara had a constitutionally protected right to her own life that was robbed by her state,” said Molly Duane, who is also representing Walker’s family through Amplify Legal, the litigation arm of nonprofit Abortion in America.
The suit alleges that Texas’ near-total abortion ban led to Walker’s preventable death, as her doctors failed to provide lifesaving medical care and state officials, including Paxton and Texas Medical Board executive director Stephen Brint Carlton, repeatedly infringed on the medical emergency exception in state law, “effectively rendering it nonexistent,” according to the complaint.
“They kept telling her, ‘It’s not the baby. The baby’s fine. It’s you,’ ” said her aunt LaTanya Walker “As many times as they said that, it’s just ridiculous. Being told that it’s all in her head. Me, to go tell her husband to let her know it’s all in her head. Given a psych medication.”
“Tierra was not only a niece to me, she was a daughter too,” LaTanya said. “She was a loving mother, courageous woman. She worked multiple jobs. She was the air you breathe, she was the glue to the family.”
“At the same time that Tierra’s health was rapidly deteriorating, there were state officials across the state using and abusing their offices to create an extreme environment of fear where Texas doctors were intimidated into inaction whenever the life-saving care that a patient needed happened to be an abortion,” Duane said.
The suit brought by Walker’s family seeks to find Texas’ abortion ban unconstitutional and recover financial damages for Walker’s death, among other relief. Representatives for the Texas Medical Board and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio declined to comment. Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
“This petition includes legal claims against every state actor who played a role in Ms. Walker’s preventable death, as there must be at least one door through which the courthouse is open,” the complaint reads. “Both the Texas Constitution and the Federal Constitution prohibit state actors from killing their citizens. If that means that Texas’s abortion bans or the Texas Torts Claims Act — or both — are unconstitutional, so be it.”
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