AUSTIN, Texas — Five women denied abortions in Texas despite having dangerous pregnancy complications sued the state in a lawsuit that could provide the first clarity on when doctors can legally perform the procedure.
The lawsuit, filed Monday by attorneys with the Center for Reproductive Rights, details “catastrophic harms” the women suffered as they navigated the state’s near-total abortion ban.
One of 13 states to outlaw the procedure outright, Texas provides only one exception – for medical emergencies. But the suit contends the language is unclear, and doctors fearful of incurring $100,000 fines and criminal prosecution, are turning patients away.
Most of the women ultimately left Texas to have an abortion. At a press conference outside the Capitol on Tuesday, they described the heartbreak upon learning their pregnancies weren’t viable, then fear and confusion about having to flee the state for help.
Anna Zargarian recalled flying to Colorado after her water broke so early into pregnancy that she was told her fetus wouldn’t survive, but she wasn’t offered an immediate abortion. The Austin woman said she game-planned with her doctor to sit close to a bathroom during the two-hour flight, knowing she was at risk of hemorrhage or going into labor.
“It was like Russian roulette,” she said. “I felt like I had no choice during that nightmare. What I needed most in that moment was the choice that Texas lawmakers robbed me of.”
The lawsuit does not name the Texas medical providers. Nor does it ask the judge to overturn the state’s abortion ban that took effect with the fall of Roe v. Wade.
Instead, it asks a Travis County judge to clarify that doctors can perform medically necessary abortions, including when a pregnancy complication poses a risk of infection or bleeding or where the fetus is unlikely to survive.
“What the law is forcing physicians to do is weigh these very real threats of criminal prosecution against the health and well-being of their patients,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights. “We brought this lawsuit so that patients will not be hindered, delayed or denied necessary obstetrical care, including abortion.”
The suit, brought against Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Texas Medical Board, marks the first time pregnant women themselves have challenged abortion bans, Northup said.
In response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Paxton said he 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, Jarrod Griffin, also pointed to a guidance letter Paxton released last summer that reiterated the law’s exemption as written, while promising stiff enforcement.
The Texas Medical Board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Texas’ restrictive law took effect after the U.S. the Supreme Court reversed the constitutional right to abortion on June 24, 2022, leaving it up to states.
Doctors who violate the Texas abortion ban face steep fines, up to life behind bars and the possible loss of their medical license. Another law, known as Senate Bill 8, also opens them up to lawsuits from private citizens who suspect they aided in or performed an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.
There are no exemptions for rape or incest, only in cases to save pregnant person’s life or to alleviate the risk of “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
While the medical community has raised concerns about the narrow exemption for months, the state has offered little guidance. Research has found some doctors in Texas believed patients had to be on “death’s door” to qualify for an abortion, and as a result of delays, women are twice as likely to suffer serious health consequences.
Two Houston OB-GYNs also joined in the lawsuit. One of them, Dr. Damla Karsan, said she and her colleagues fear that prosecutors and politicians will target them and threaten their hospitals’ funding “if they provide abortion care to pregnant people with emergent medical conditions,” according to the lawsuit.
As of October, providers reported performing just three abortions statewide, all of them in hospitals and in response to medical emergencies, according to the most recently available data published by the state’s health and human services commission.
Authors of the abortion restrictions have said physicians are wrongly interpreting the exemptions, and should not delay critical care. Legislators have filed bills seeking to clarify the law, though it remains to be seen whether any will pass. The GOP-led Legislature meets in regular session through May.
With the Capitol building looming behind her, Lauren Hall said she had already named her baby Amelia, when at 18 weeks, an ultrasound showed the fetus was developing without a skull. The condition is fatal, and Hall could face increased health risks, the suit said. A specialist told Hall she could leave Texas for an abortion, but advised the Dallas-area resident not to tell anyone what she was doing or where she was going.
Neighboring states were so inundated with patients, Hall said she traveled to a Seattle clinic, where she said she was harangued by protesters.
“We received outstanding care in Seattle during the most dramatic time in our lives,” she said, “care I wish I could have received in my home state.”
Amanda Zurawski, Lauren Miller and Ashley Brandt are also plaintiffs in the suit. Zurawski, of Austin, said she nearly died from a bacterial infection because doctors could not legally perform an abortion, even though the fetus was not viable. She was a guest in first lady Jill Biden’s box for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address.
During a news briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre said the lawsuit exposed “horrifying details of needless pain, all because of extreme efforts by Republican officials to take away a woman’s ability to make her own health care decisions.”
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(Washington Bureau Chief Todd J. Gillman contributed to this report.)
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