Tierra Walker Asked for an Abortion at Two San Antonio Hospitals, Saw About 90 Medical Professionals and Died of Preeclampsia at 20 Weeks. Her Family Is Now Suing Ken Paxton and Every Doctor Who Sent Her Home.

The family of a San Antonio woman who died of preeclampsia while 20 weeks pregnant filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, the executive director of the state medical board and several of the doctors who treated her, alleging that Texas's near-total abortion ban led to "deliberate indifference, discrimination, and medical mistreatment" that "ultimately caused her horrific and tragic death."

Tierra Walker was 37 when she died in late December 2024. According to the complaint filed in Bexar County District Court, she learned she was pregnant on Sept. 19, 2024, in an emergency room, nearly eight weeks along. She already had obesity, high blood pressure, severe asthma and Type 2 diabetes, and three years earlier preeclampsia during a twin pregnancy had ended in a stillbirth and left her health worse. Within weeks she was hospitalized for seizures, nausea and vomiting. Her family says she asked for an abortion on Oct. 12 at one hospital and again on Oct. 30 at University Health, when she was about 11 weeks pregnant. Two doctors documented a "high" risk of death in late October and early November. On Dec. 27 she went to the emergency room and was diagnosed with preeclampsia, then discharged the same night. Days later her son found her unresponsive. It was his 15th birthday.

The autopsy listed preeclampsia and hypertensive cardiovascular disease, an enlarged heart, severe fluid in her lungs and kidney damage. The fetus was a normally developed 20-week pregnancy weighing under a pound. Lawyers say she was seen by roughly 90 medical professionals over four months. "Tierra Walker is dead because not one of her healthcare providers would give her the one medical procedure that would have saved her life," said Michelle Maloney, one of the family's attorneys. Dr. Kameelah Phillips, a New York OB-GYN who reviewed the case, called it "one of the most egregious malpractice cases I have ever seen. She didn't have to die."

The 6,500 pages of medical records contain no note of Walker requesting an abortion, even though her relatives say she used that exact word. Her lawyers argue that is the point: doctors in Texas, where performing an illegal abortion carries up to 99 years in prison, fines and loss of a medical license, avoid writing the request down for fear of "repercussions from the state." A 2025 survey of more than 200 Texas OB-GYNs found fewer than half believed the state's clarifying law had improved their ability to care for patients and more than two-thirds remained worried about legal consequences. Black women in Texas die of pregnancy-related causes at more than 2.5 times the rate of white or Hispanic women, and the state's maternal mortality review committee has pushed its 2026 report to December, after the midterm election.

The state has argued the law was never the problem. In May 2025 the Legislature passed the "Life of the Mother Act," which dropped the requirement that a patient's crisis be "imminent" and required the state to prove that "no reasonable doctor" would have intervened. It took effect months after Walker died. Dr. Christina Francis of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists said Walker's death resulted from "inadequate medical care; it was certainly not the fault of Texas' abortion law." Paxton's office did not respond to requests for comment, and UT Health San Antonio and the Texas Medical Board declined to comment. Walker's aunt, LaTanya Walker, told CBS News that doctors treated her niece "so bad because they thought she was crazy," suggesting "this is all in her head." Asked what she would say to Paxton, she answered: "Honestly, go to hell."

The suit was filed as the two-year statute of limitations was about to run out, and as Paxton campaigns for the U.S. Senate. The family's lawyers, including Molly Duane of Amplify Legal, the legal arm of the advocacy group Abortion in America, deny any political timing. They also face a steep procedural climb under the Texas Tort Claims Act, which sharply limits suits against public hospitals and state officials. Whatever the outcome, the case puts a name and a timeline on a question Texas has spent four years insisting was settled.