Texas Sued by Women Facing ‘Catastrophic Harms’ After Abortion Denials
‘TIP OF THE ICEBERG’
The women all faced life-threatening infections or hemorrhage after learning their fetuses would not survive their pregnancies, but were denied abortions anyway, they claim.
A group of five women, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas on Monday, saying they were denied abortions despite the life-threatening circumstances of their pregnancies. The 91-page complaint demands the court clarify the circumstances under which doctors can make exceptions to the statewide abortion ban, with the draconian punishments for physicians who cross it intimidating many of them into erring on the side of caution, putting the mother in danger of “catastrophic harms” in the process. “Because of the law, I very nearly died,” plaintiff Amanda Zurawski told NBC News. Zurawski had been excited to have her first child, only to go into labor too early. Her doctors told her that though her baby would not survive, they could still detect a heartbeat, so she had to wait to become sicker to receive an abortion. She developed sepsis because of the delay. “Nothing about this is pro-life,” she added. The lawsuit says that the women, all of them married and some of them already mothers, “represent only the tip of the iceberg,” according to The New York Times.
