SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — September 15, 2026 — Today, the family of Tierra Walker, a San Antonio mother who died as a result of Texas’s abortion bans, filed a lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Texas public health system. Ms. Walker’s family alleges in the suit that Paxton, as well as the Executive Director of the Texas Medical Board, the University Health System, and individual doctors with the University of Texas Health Science Center are to blame for the death of Ms. Walker in December 2024. 

The lawsuit argues that Texas’s political and medical establishment not only failed, but actively harmed Tierra Walker throughout her pregnancy by consistently disregarding her deteriorating health conditions and ignoring her pleas for help. Throughout the first four months of Ms. Walker’s pregnancy, she had interactions with more than 100 doctors and repeatedly asked for an abortion to save her life, which remains the sole legal exception to Texas’s abortion ban. 

Ms. Walker experienced dire health complications as a direct result of pregnancy, including seizures, blood clots, and dangerously high blood pressure, but doctors refused to give her a life-saving abortion. Medical staff insisted that “nothing was wrong with the baby” and that Tierra just needed to “get her health under control.”

The suit also argues that Texas’s abortion ban is unconstitutional. Attorney General Ken Paxton and the other state officials who enforce the bans have done nothing to address the deadly consequences of the law they continue to enforce.

“No one else should have to experience what my family has gone through. Tierra was the glue that held our family together, and now she’s gone.” said LaTanya Walker, Ms. Walker’s aunt. “Doctors all turned a blind eye as Tierra was dying, and refused to give her the abortion she needed to save her life. She deserves justice.” 

“Tierra had a treatable medical condition, the problem was that the treatment she needed was an abortion. She died a preventable death. Medical and political negligence killed Tierra Walker,” said Michelle Maloney, Principal Attorney at Marynell Maloney Law Firm, a malpractice law firm representing the Walker family in this suit. 

“Tierra Walker is proof that there is no exception. If she did not qualify, if even her doctors were too scared to act, then the medical emergency exception is nothing more than words on a page,” said Molly Duane, Litigation Director of Amplify Legal, the litigation arm of Abortion in America, who is jointly representing the Walker family. “Texans are dying because of abortion bans and Ken Paxton and the state of Texas are just letting it happen.”

The complaint can be found HERE. For press inquiries, please contact Amplify Legal at info@abortioninamerica.org.

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The Walker family is represented by Amplify Legal, the litigation arm of Abortion in America and Michelle Maloney, Principal Attorney at the Marynell Maloney Law Firm.

Abortion in America, a nonpartisan, non-profit project of Hopewell Fund, is a national effort to bring greater public attention and urgency to the toll abortion bans are taking on people’s health, lives, work, and families. Abortion in America is focused on documenting and sharing personal stories, supporting and organizing people who come forward to share their experiences, and creating change with organizing, strategic partnerships, and litigation through Amplify Legal. To learn more about Abortion in America, please visit abortioninamerica.org.