Latest news with #AmandaZurawski
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
‘It's violently anti-woman': Melissa Murray reflects on the criminalization of miscarriage
One in five women experience a miscarriage according to the National Institutes of Health, and now women who suffer pregnancy loss can face prosecution. One prosecutor in West Virginia even went so far as to suggest women call law enforcement after having a miscarriage to avoid prosecution. Amanda Zurawski, lead plaintiff in the Texas case that included 20 women who were denied emergency care, called this suggestion 'reprehensible' and 'terrifying.' NYU Professor Melissa Murray says that
Boston Globe
31-03-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
Sorry, Republicans. Exceptions to abortion bans don't make any sense.
For example, Democrats stressed the cruelty of Texas's abortion law during the 2024 presidential campaign, highlighting the experiences of women like Amanda Zurawski. She developed sepsis after physicians, worried about violating the law, Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up On the other side, Republican lawmakers have been frantically attempting to clarify existing exceptions with a amendments and new Advertisement The reality is that today's abortion bans are In the 19th century, it was physicians who led the fight to criminalize abortion. But these antiabortion activist physicians also expected courts to give them real discretion when interpreting statutory exceptions for the life of the mother — unlike what doctors can expect today. In the past, courts often met physicians' expectations, interpreting the exceptions in ways that mostly protected physicians who acted in good faith to Advertisement When states began reforming criminal abortion bans in the 1960s and after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, a very different antiabortion movement emerged. Its members were no longer primarily doctors. Indeed, the activists and religious leaders who mobilized before and after Roe distrusted doctors, since in their view, some physicians used existing exceptions for the life of the mother to perform abortions for a wide variety of reasons. That generation of antiabortion activists became convinced that life and health exceptions were just an excuse to let doctors do whatever they wanted. They pointed to Roe's companion case, Depression and other mental health issues during and after pregnancy are all too real, but antiabortion leaders argued that anyone who wanted an abortion could fabricate a threat to her mental health. They wanted to stop doctors from using medical-emergency exceptions as a loophole for abortions. So when Roe was overturned in 2022, abortion opponents built on the ideas of the 1960s to design bans that stripped doctors of as much discretion as possible. States no longer protect doctors who act in good faith; they Advertisement And as exceptions have narrowed, penalties have increased. Now, most states with bans treat abortion as a major felony, subject to up to life in prison. The new bills purport to clarify the rules around exceptions, but they don't fundamentally change the current dynamic for doctors. The word 'life-saving' was struck from the exception in Texas's bill, and a handful of conditions for which abortion could be allowed were listed. But Kentucky's bill claiming to 'clarify' exceptions instead stresses that any intervention must be life-saving, even if a patient is experiencing a miscarriage — and that physicians must use 'reasonable medical judgment' instead of good faith. The problem is that medicine isn't straightforward. Pregnancy complications aren't limited to Republican lawmakers' lists of 'acceptable' conditions that warrant medical intervention. In many, many circumstances, physicians will still be risking lawsuits and prison time if they make a call antiabortion prosecutors don't like. Exceptions will continue to be at the center of our political and legal conversations about abortion in red states. In all likelihood, women will continue to die or suffer serious harm as the laws hamstring doctors. Though the architects of abortion bans would prefer not to have to choose between protecting fetal lives at all costs and saving women's lives, if it comes down to it, we all know which lives they will choose.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Amanda Zurawski Won't Give Up the Fight for Reproductive Rights
Amanda Zurawski of Austin, Texas, is sworn in to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled "The Assault on Reproductive Rights in a Post-Dobbs America," in Hart Building on Wednesday, April 26, 2023. Credit - Tom Williams—CQ-Roll Call, Inc./Getty Images Amanda Zurawski never set out to be an activist. But in 2022, when she was four months pregnant after years of trying, her life changed forever. She dilated too early, her water broke at just 18 weeks, and suddenly, her pregnancy was in distress. Zurawski's doctors told her 'with complete certainty' that she would lose the baby. If Zurawski, now 37, had lived in another state, or in another time, her doctors would've been able to give her standard medical treatment, in this case an abortion. She would've been able to heal and go on to have a healthy pregnancy. But Zurawski lived in Texas in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision. Her water broke the same week that Texas' trigger law went into effect, banning abortion in almost all circumstances. Because her fetus still had a heartbeat, her doctors could not treat her miscarriage. 'I had to wait until the baby died inside me or for me to be on death's door before I could get care,' she says. She went into septic shock and was hospitalized for a week. 'Now my reproductive organs are permanently compromised,' she says. After sharing her story publicly, Zurawski became the lead plaintiff in the Center for Reproductive Rights' lawsuit challenging Texas's abortion ban. That lawsuit, Zurawski v. Texas, inspired others around the country. Zurawski became the face of the abortion-rights movement, and her story became one of the most prominent examples of the dangers abortion bans pose to women's health. In May 2024 the Texas Supreme Court upheld the ban. The decision felt like 'a slap in the face,' Zurawski recalls. 'It felt like they were trying to take away our voices, erase us from history, and silence us.' Zurawski refused to back down. She made dozens of campaign trips for President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris over the course of 2024, warning about the dangers another Donald Trump presidency would pose to reproductive justice. After Harris lost, Zurawski was devastated. But she didn't let herself wallow for long. 'The anti-choice movement would want us to be tired, they'd want us to rest,' she says. 'It's not in my nature to give up. It can get worse, and it will, if we don't continue to fight.' Write to Charlotte Alter at
