1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

Here's the letter with that framing worked into the "broader concern" paragraph, since all three of your federal reps are Republicans: Why Is This Acceptable in Any Modern Country — And How Does It Make America Great Again? I am asking you to treat the recent spike in ectopic pregnancy deaths as the medical emergency it is, and to act on it. A ProPublica analysis of CDC data found that almost 200 women died from ectopic pregnancy complications between 2020 and 2025, compared with roughly 106 in the previous six years — nearly double. The increase has been steepest in the 18 states with strict abortion bans, where the death rate climbed to 13.1 per million live births, versus 7.1 in states without bans. This isn't a handful of isolated tragedies. In Texas alone, 310 more patients suffered severe blood loss from ectopic pregnancies in 2023–2024 than in 2018–2019, a 29% jump. Kyleigh Thurman's fallopian tube ruptured in 2023 after two Texas emergency rooms sent her home without treating a diagnosis they suspected. Leitaea Lowrimore of Oklahoma was turned away from three hospitals across two states in February, with one doctor telling her that treating her could mean "10 years in the poky" — she finally reached safety only by driving to Kansas for care. Maternal health experts are clear that ectopic pregnancies are never viable and almost always fatal if untreated — one OB-GYN called a death from this condition a "never event." Even bans that technically exempt ectopic pregnancies are failing patients in practice, because doctors are delaying care out of fear of prosecution while they wait for an ironclad diagnosis. That delay is costing lives. This isn't a fringe concern, even within your own party. National polling shows federal abortion ban proposals sit at just 19–23% support, and in states with the strictest bans, a majority of residents — 53% — still say abortion should be legal in most or all cases. Recent battleground polling has found voters broadly reject using federal law enforcement to restrict abortion access, even in states where it remains legal. Constituents are watching how their representatives handle this, and it's shaping races this cycle. I think about this as someone who could be one ultrasound away from becoming a statistic. Pregnancy complications don't check a calendar or wait for a prosecutor to feel comfortable. When a law makes a doctor's legal risk outweigh my medical risk, my safety becomes secondary to someone else's caution. That's not protection — that's abandonment, dressed up as principle. I am asking you to: 1 Press the CDC and HHS to restore funding and staffing to the Division of Reproductive Health and the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, so ectopic pregnancy deaths are properly tracked and investigated rather than left to independent journalists to uncover. 2 Request or support a congressional hearing on the rise in ectopic pregnancy deaths in states with abortion restrictions, similar to the national maternal mortality review the United Kingdom conducted after its own spike during the pandemic — an investigation that led directly to faster ambulance response and clearer clinical guidance there. 3 Cosponsor or support legislation that restores federal protections against state laws delaying or blocking time-sensitive pregnancy care, and push for explicit, enforceable clinical guidance — not just paper exemptions — for ectopic pregnancy treatment in states with bans. So I'll ask again, plainly: how does it make America great to let women bleed internally while doctors calculate their own legal exposure? Real strength is a country that protects its people fast enough to matter, not one that makes them drive across state lines to survive — and this November, voters will remember who acted and who didn't. Thank you for considering this.