Amanda Zurawski was desperate to become a mother. Her husband and she were thrilled to discover that Amanda was pregnant with their first child.
It was the summer before. The doctor informed them that they would be having a daughter. The doctor told them they were having a girl.
The heat will be unbearable in August 2022 Texas Zurawski was just finishing the list of invitations for her babyshower when she noticed something running down her leg. Inside Edition Digital: “I wasn’t sure if that was normal.”
It was an awful night.
She was 17 weeks and six days pregnant when a frightened Zurawski told her husband, “I feel like my body is opening up.” In essence, it was. The cervix of the woman had already begun to dilate and her water then broke. She said, “I had lost all my amniotic material.”
She was terrified.
She says, “This baby was something we desperately wanted.” We underwent an year-and-a-half of fertility treatments.
Zurawski and her husband were in their second trimester at the time they went to hospital. In the following days, she went back and forward as her health workers explained that they couldn’t do much because of new state laws which effectively ban the medical procedure.
In 1973, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidating abortion as a right was upheld. But on June 24 last year the U.S. Supreme Court made a shocking reversal. Roe v. Wade
The ruling for 2022 isDobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
In terms of mother’s health, the new Texas law says that an abortion may be done if a woman has “a serious physical problem aggravated, caused, or arisen from pregnancy.” Texas was the first state to enact severe abortion limits after the high court’s 2022 reversal.
Some doctors fear that they may face jail, felony charges and the loss of license if the procedure is performed.
Zurawski said that her medical staff was deeply concerned about her situation, but their hands were firmly tied.
Zurawski recalls that “because the baby’s was still beating, they could not do anything.” After her fever had spiked on day three and she began to feel delirious, Zurawski was finally admitted into the hospital. She was diagnosed with sepsis.
First, she had to be stabilized. She had to then deliver the stillborn baby, which “seemed insane in retrospect,” she said. She was then taken to intensive care, where her vital signs dropped and she fought for her life over the next 3 days.
Zurawski does not know whether she can ever become pregnant again. Sepsis has caused her uterus to be scarred. According to her, one of the fallopian tubes in her uterus is permanently closed.
Zurawski was incredibly nervous three months ago when he sat down in the office. Washington, D.C., before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to testify at a hearing titled “The Assault on Reproductive Rights in a Post-Dobbs America.”
She shared her story about losing her child and almost losing her life in front of an audience, which included two Senators who had been elected to represent the ultra-conservative Republicans. Ted Cruz John Cornyn is a vehement opponent of abortion.
The senators were already out of the room when the witness began to testify.
She said, “I want them to understand that the things which happened to me are a direct consequence of their policies,” during the hearing.
Her testimony stated that she “nearly died” under their care. She said, “I may not have had the chance to bear children.”
She said that her suffering would have been reduced by a factor of ten if an abortion had taken place after she broke water.
“I cannot adequately put into words the trauma and despair that comes with waiting to either lose your own life, your child’s, or both,” she told the senators. For days, I felt trapped in this absurd and preventable hell. Would Willow’s heart stop, or would I deteriorate to the brink of death?”
Zurawski, one of fifteen plaintiffs who are now suing Texas for its alleged violations The following are some of the reasons why you should consider hiring someone elseThe laws that are currently in place endanger women pregnant with medical problems.
Molly Duane is an attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights. She said earlier in the year that “What happened to the women was unjustifiable and happens to many pregnant people throughout the state.” Now, the center represents thirteen women and two physicians who are suing Texas.
In June 2014, 14 states (including Texas) banned abortions. The Center for Reproductive Rights & the Brennan Center for Justice report that 40 lawsuits challenging the new state bans have already been filed. 29 are currently in trial or appeals.
The earliest evidence of the existence of a cellular organism is that it was discovered in 1953. South Carolina Centers said that Idaho Supreme Court had ruled against the rights to abortion, while Idaho Supreme Court has decided the opposite.
In the middle, several states have upheld the right to a medical procedure if a woman’s life is in danger.
Zurawski (36), has described her terrifying brush with death in detail to Congress members as well as reporters. She says she’ll continue telling her story up until there are changes made.
She filed a lawsuit to clarify state laws governing pregnant women who are in danger.
She said, “Look what the effect is on women.” “They seem not to care.” The don’t bother to come to my room and listen to what I have to say.
There are many women who share her pain, says the woman.
These are the voices of other pregnant patients who have fought to save their own lives.
Zurawski and other women told their stories of pregnancy loss to reporters outside Austin’s Texas state capitol on a March Tuesday.
Like Zurawski they were both plaintiffs. The new rules do not exempt pregnancies resulting from rape and incest.
Lauren Hall (28 years old) became pregnant last summer, according to her. Her husband and she learned that their baby was a female. Amelia is the name they gave her, and their friends and families began sending baby gifts.
But at 18 weeks, her doctor delivered horrible news. Hall’s fetus had been diagnosed with anencephaly, a serious birth defect that prevents development of the brain and skull. She was informed that most babies with this condition were stillborn and even those who survived did not live more than a few hours.
Medical workers gave Hall and her husband two options — wait until she miscarried, or seek an abortion in another state where the medical procedure remained legal, she said. Her doctor told her that, under Texas’s new abortion laws he would not be able forward her records if she traveled out-of-state.
She should not tell anyone that she is traveling out-of-state because Texas may prosecute people who are involved in the abortion of a woman.
“Providers are scared to treat cases like ours without guidelines from the state, and more people will suffer and lose their lives if a change is not made,” she told reporters.
Eventually she managed to secure an appointment with an abortionist in Seattle, Washington. She said she had already tried clinics that were in other states with legal procedures, but they were all full. As the clock continued to tick, she was in a hurry. She said that each day she was pregnant, the more likely she would be to experience potentially life-threatening complications.
She said that every part of the experience had been traumatic. Her husband and she were both devastated when they learned that their child would not live. She was also terrified to miscarry and be unable to call for help. “She did not want to end up bleeding to death on the bathroom floor,” the lawsuit said.
Yet even in Seattle, as she walked toward the clinic, she was confronted by protesters “calling us killers and waving pictures with dead babies at us,” she said at the news conference.
They tried to have children again. Hall said she was still terrified while pregnant.
“I compulsively look up every ache and pain, terrified that I will find myself in this unbearable situation again,” she said.
The same thing happened to women all over the country who tried to stop non-viable births in order to protect themselves.
Mylissa Farmer, a Missouri woman, had her water break at 17 weeks. Doctors at two different hospitals warned her she was at serious risk of losing her uterus or infection because her amniotic water had been lost. The fetus still had a beating heart, so both hospitals refused to do an abortion.
“It was dehumanizing. It was horrifying. It was horrible not to get the care to save your life,” Farmer told The Associated Press last month. “I felt responsible for doing something to prevent this from happening to another woman. I said something.”
In the end, she obtained a legal Illinois abortion. She publicly spoke of her experiences.
The AP cited documents that were obtained by The AP to report on the findings of federal health officials who determined both hospitals broke federal law, and endangered her life.
“Fortunately, this patient survived. But she never should have gone through the terrifying ordeal she experienced in the first place,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said about the case.
“We want her, and every patient out there like her, to know that we will do everything we can to protect their lives and health, and to investigate and enforce the law to the fullest extent of our legal authority, in accordance with orders from the courts,” Becerra said.
In emergency situations, federal law stipulates that the patient must be treated. This includes all facilities receiving federal reimbursements for healthcare costs.
According to The AP, the two hospitals have been told that they must correct their policies and federal Medicare investigators will follow-up before the case is closed.
After the March complaint, the Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s spokesperson issued a press release. Paxton is the defendant named in this women’s suit.
“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 statement said.
Paxton, an aggressive opponent of abortion, filed a lawsuit in February against the Biden administration, challenging federal guidelines requiring pharmacies to fill prescriptions for abortion-inducing medication.
“The Biden Administration knows that it has no legal authority to institute this radical abortion agenda, so now it’s trying to intimidate every pharmacy in America by threatening to withhold federal funds,” Paxton said in a statement at the time. “It’s not going to work.”
Late in May, Republicans who control the Texas House of Representatives took an unprecedented step. Impeaching Paxton (also a Republican) accusing him accepting bribes. Abusing his office. Breaking the law. Obstructing justice. Paxton’s suspension from office is pending the outcome of a Senate trial.
The Attorney General has denied any allegations made against him. He called the House vote illegal and claimed it was motivated by the “abortion industry” and anti-gun “zealots” who were trying to sabotage his lawsuits filed against the Biden Administration.
The Senate’s trial of Senator McConnell is scheduled to start no later than August 28.