Five women denied abortions in Texas, along with two doctors, have sued the state after they were refused abortion care despite suffering severe complications with their pregnancies.
None of the plaintiffs’ fetuses had a chance of survival. The state’s abortion bans are supposed to allow for the procedure in cases where there is a fatal diagnosis for the fetus, as well as when the pregnancy poses substantial harms to the pregnant person’s health.
And yet, under the overlapping abortion bans in effect in Texas – which threaten doctors with losing their medical licenses, hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and up to 99 years in jail for providing abortion care – the plaintiffs claim they were not given the healthcare they needed and were entitled to.
“People are scared and outraged at the thought of being pregnant in this state,” Amanda Zurawski, one of the plaintiffs in the case said on Tuesday in a press conference about the lawsuit in front of the Texas capitol in Austin.
According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is bringing the lawsuit, the case is the first since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year in which pregnant women are challenging the abortion bans that are wreaking havoc on reproductive health in much of the country. “We want the state of Texas to acknowledge the women behind me should have received timely abortion care,” said Molly Duane, the lead litigator in the case, outside the Texas capitol. She said the lawsuit aimed to establish that what happened to the plaintiffs was a violation of their basic human rights according to the Texas constitution.
The women named in the case encountered a range of different outcomes and treatment detailed in a 92-page complaint filed on Monday.
Zurawski nearly lost her life before doctors would intervene, the lawsuit claims, even though doctors long knew the pregnancy would not be viable. After becoming pregnant following 18 months of fertility treatments, Zurawski was diagnosed in her 17th week with a weakened cervix. While she was told there was no chance the fetus would survive, she was denied treatment in Texas until she had gone into septic shock, with a high fever, and delivered a stillbirth.
Ultimately, according to the complaint, Zurawski ended up in the ICU following a secondary infection and septic shock, and “Amanda’s family flew to Austin from across the country because they worried it would be the last time they would see her”. Zurawski is left with just one functioning fallopian tube. She is currently undergoing a fresh round of IVF treatments.
“The preventable harm inflicted on me will make it harder than it already was for me to get pregnant again,” Zurawski said at the press conference. “These bans are having real effects on real people.”
The other women traveled hundreds of miles out of state for abortions, sometimes risking going into septic shock on the plane, and traveling as far as Seattle and Colorado to receive care. During the press conference, one of the plaintiffs, Lauren Hall, detailed having to walk past protesters accusing her of killing her baby after traveling out of state for care for her unviable pregnancy.
In addition to Zurawski and Hall, the women bringing the case are Lauren Miller, Anna Zargarian and Ashley Brandt. They are joined by two doctors, Damla Karsan and Judy Levison, both obstetricians-gynaecologists with experience in providing abortions, who argue that their medical practice has been chilled by the bans.
A spokesperson for the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, who is named as a defendant in the case, said in an email: “Attorney General Paxton is committed to doing everything in his power to protect mothers, families and unborn children, and he will continue to defend and enforce the laws duly enacted by the Texas legislature.” The spokesperson also attached the guidance letter on Texas law issued by Paxton following the US supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade.
“Since September 2021, millions of people of reproductive capacity in Texas and beyond have been denied dignified treatment as equal human beings,” reads the complaint, arguing that the stories of the five women “represent only the tip of the iceberg”. Before Roe was overturned, Texas passed a six-week ban in 2021 that up until that point was the strictest in the country.
None of the women are suing the doctors who treated them, nor are they trying to overturn the abortion ban in Texas. The suit calls on Texas officials to make clear the scope of the exceptions in the state’s various bans that allow for abortion care.
“Pregnant people in Texas and throughout the country have suffered unnecessary physical and emotional pain and harm, including loss of their fertility … These people are not hypothetical. They are not unknown. They are real people with families, many with children already,” the lawsuit states.
It continues: “The bans are exposing pregnant people to risks of death, injury and illness, including loss of fertility – making it less likely that every family who wants to bring children into the world will be able to do so and survive the experience. Medical professionals are now telling their patients that if they want to become pregnant, they should leave Texas.”
