ProPublica won this year’s George Polk Award in Journalism in the medical reporting category for its “Life of the Mother” series. Administered by Long Island University, the Polk Awards honor investigative and enterprising reporting that gains attention and achieves results, and are conferred annually to honor special achievement in journalism.
“Life of the Mother,” which is ongoing, is a landmark investigation into the unexamined, irreversible consequences of state abortion bans. Kavitha Surana, Lizzie Presser and Cassandra Jaramillo mined hospital and death records in Texas and other states whose strict abortion bans threatened physicians with prosecution. They uncovered a tragic result: the preventable deaths of five women who could not get routine treatment for pregnancy complications. Stacy Kranitz’s immersive photo essay documented the unraveling of a family after a denied abortion for a life-threatening pregnancy; the piece helped audiences see, feel and understand how decisions made by those in power impact families.
ProPublica’s findings were inescapable as voters contemplated ballot initiatives to expand abortion access, which largely passed. They resounded through presidential campaign speeches and debates, congressional and court hearings and demonstrations from Georgia to Minnesota to New York.
More than 100 Texas doctors signed a letter in response to the reporting, urging reforms of their state laws; even the party that championed the ban and the senator who authored it now say the laws need to be changed. Republican leaders say they are drafting language, which will be considered in the 2025 session alongside legislation to broaden access to abortion proposed in response to ProPublica’s investigation. In response to the reporting, a separate bill directs the state’s maternal mortality review committee to examine cases in which women died after miscarriages or because they could not access procedures to end pregnancies; the state currently restricts the committee from looking at cases in any way associated with abortion procedures, including miscarriage care.
Forty-one senators also introduced a resolution calling on hospitals to provide emergency abortion care when patients needed it. Four members of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Accountability are demanding a briefing from Texas’ health department on why its maternal mortality review committee is skipping two years of deaths, including ones containing cases ProPublica reported.
The Senate Finance Committee opened an investigation that resulted in a report that showed how hospitals have been “conspicuously and deliberately silent” in the face of abortion bans, giving doctors little guidance on how to stabilize emergency patients with pregnancy complications. The committee released hundreds of pages of internal hospital policies and protocols, creating a rare opportunity for doctors to compare how their institutions handle bans and advocate for better practices.
See a list of all of this year’s Polk Award Winners.
