The 109th annual Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism, Letters, Drama and Music were announced Monday, May 5.
Among the winners: Kavitha Surana, a Maplewood resident, who won the 2025 Public Service Pulitzer along with her colleagues Lizzie Presser, Cassandra Jaramillo and Stacy Kranitz at ProPublica for their reporting exposing the fatal consequences of abortion bans.
Their series “Life of the Mother,” was described by Pulitzer judges as “urgent reporting about pregnant women who died after doctors delayed urgently needed care for fear of violating vague ‘life of the mother’ exceptions in states with strict abortion laws.” The prize is given to the staff of a news organization that performed meritorious public service.
Per ProPublica, “the investigation last fall revealed how three Texas women died after they did not receive critical procedures during miscarriages. The reporting added to the testimonies and reports of dozens of women denied care during pregnancy complications and led to a statewide reckoning on the dire effects of the law.”
Seated from left, ProPublica reporters Cassandra Jaramillo, Lizzie Presser, Kavitha Surana, deputy managing editor Alexandra Zayas and editor in chief Stephen Engelberg celebrate after being awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for public service for the series “Life of the Mother,” at the ProPublica office in New York on May 5, 2025. Photo credit: Sarahbeth Maney/ProPublica.
As a result of the reporting, Surana and Jaramillo reported recently, “Texas Republicans have proposed changes to the state’s strict abortion ban they say would make clear that doctors can terminate pregnancies for serious medical risks without having to wait until a patient’s condition becomes life-threatening.”
The project was personal for Surana, who is a native of Texas (she spent a decade in New York City and some time in Lawrence NJ before moving to Maplewood in 2023). Additionally, she gave birth to her daughter in March 2024 — “the same year I did this reporting project,” Surana told Village Green.
“Going through the process of pregnancy and spending so much time in these women’s lives and the records of how they died and the help that they weren’t able to get” added an extra layer to covering the story, said Surana.
Surana and her daughter at ProPublica’s New York City office.
“This is such a seismic change in our whole country when Roe was overturned, and we really wanted to investigate what that would mean for women across the country — and that includes my daughter’s future.”
Surana explained that the “Life of the Mother” series not only focuses on the deaths in abortion ban states but also on women living with the impacts on maternal health care caused by the ban. She described reporting the story of a woman in Tennessee who was denied an abortion even though she had a life-threatening condition. ProPublica followed the woman and her family’s story for a year after she endured a traumatic birth at 26 weeks, investigating the state’s social safety net resources for families in that position.”
The fact that the work is having an impact has helped to motivate her.
“That’s what gave me the energy to do this the same year I was having a baby and postpartum. Bringing this to light … you do feel like there could be an impact, that it could lead to people understanding the challenges to maternal health. What that actually looks like.”
Surana added that her husband’s hands-on support had been a big part of helping her pursue this reporting so soon after giving birth. The family traveled down to Georgia with their five month-old daughter so she could knock on doors and meet people in person. She noted that the job included lots of “shoe leather reporting” with her team focusing on states like Texas and Georgia where death records are available but, at least in the case of Texas, must be painstakingly procured on a county by county basis. The team also needed to reach out to the women’s families and ask them for help to gather more medical records.
Surana said she is thankful that both she and her husband have parental leave. “I’m so keenly aware of how it made a difference that both me and my husband had that.”
Meanwhile the work continues, as the team is still investigating deaths and analyzing maternal health outcomes in states that banned abortion.
“We just had another story published,” said Surana. “This issue is not going away, so we are not going anywhere.”
Read the team’s most recent story here: Why Hospital Policies Matter in States That Ban Abortion
