Women Who Almost Died From Texas' Abortion Ban Sue State in Landmark Lawsuit
Five Texas women, some of whom say they almost died as a result of the state’s near-total ban on abortion, are suing the state in a post-Roe v. Wade lawsuit that the New York Times identified as the first “brought on behalf of women denied abortions.” The lawsuit, Zurawski v. State of Texas, filed on Monday, demands that Texas provide clarification about the ban’s exception that claims to allow abortion care when the pregnant person’s life is at risk.
The plaintiffs say that this wasn’t their experience, even though two carried fetuses with no skulls and two suffered conditions threatening the viability of twins they were pregnant with. All say they experienced complications that threatened their lives. Yet across the state, doctors are reportedly not informing patients including even those suffering from complications about the option of having abortion care, as some speak in code to evade retaliation.
As advocates have always pointed out, exceptions—whether for rape survivors or people facing life-threatening conditions—are rarely effective. And in Texas, it seems almost impossible that exceptions for the life of a pregnant person, who is likely in the midst of a time-sensitive medical emergency, would be effective when Texas law threatens providers with prison sentences up to 99 years and $100,000 fines.
Last summer, one Georgia-based OB/GYN explained the dilemma of abortion ban exceptions to Jezebel by talking about a pregnant patient whose cancer diagnosis required her to seek abortion care some time before Roe fell. “If that patient couldn’t get her chemotherapy because she’s forced to continue her pregnancy, she’s not going to die in that moment, but she probably will die much sooner. Maybe significantly sooner, decades sooner,” Dr. Nisha Verma told Jezebel. That’s because exceptions fail to specify what counts as a threat to someone’s life, thus delaying or preventing urgently needed care.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/women-almost-died-texas-abortion-173700177.html
