Seven more women have joined the lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights against Texas, bringing the total number of plaintiffs in the case to 22.
The plaintiffs are suing Texas over the state’s pro-life laws, wrongly claiming that the laws do not allow doctors to care for pregnant mothers suffering medical complications during their pregnancies. The case, Zurawski v. The State of Texas, was first filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of five women in March.
The Center for Reproductive Rights acknowledged that Texas’ pro-life law provides exceptions for abortion in cases of medical emergency, however, it simultaneously claims that Texas has “extreme abortion bans” and seeks “to clarify the scope of the state’s ‘medical emergency’ exception.” Induced abortion — the intentional and direct killing of preborn children in the womb — is not medically necessary. A pregnancy can be ended without intentionally killing the baby.
The seven new plaintiffs join the lead plaintiff, Amanda Zurawski, two OB/GYNs, and 12 other plaintiffs. Each woman has shared heart-wrenching stories in an attempt to prove that Texas needs to weaken its protections for preborn human beings. Yet, none of the women needed for her child to be intentionally killed, and the failure of hospital staff to properly care for them has more to do with medical negligence than pro-life laws.
New plaintiff Cristina Nuñez was suffering from multiple health problems, including diabetes and end-stage renal disease when she conceived her child. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, Nuñez’s pregnancy caused the mother to have multiple blood clots and spend more time on dialysis. It is not known if Nuñez’s doctors attributed these health problems to her pregnancy.
Nuñez sought an abortion, first from Texas; then, when she found that she did not qualify for an abortion in Texas, from New Mexico. She wanted to take the abortion pill but was told she could not due to her health problems. After the severity of Nuñez’s blood clots increased, she sought and underwent an abortion in Texas after a trip to the emergency room with the help of a pro-bono attorney.
When a woman’s life is truly at risk, doctors are able to intervene in every state including Texas by ending the pregnancy — not through induced abortion, but by delivering the child alive and attempting to save both lives. Sometimes the child will be too young to survive and will die as a result of the emergency delivery or C-section. The important difference is that the child was not intentionally and directly killed — that is the action that Texas law prohibits.
Another new plaintiff, Kristen Anaya, was 16 and a half weeks pregnant when her water broke, but her daughter Tylee remained in the womb. According to reports, Anaya’s OB/GYN told her she had to “get very sick” before doctors could help her.
“So it would have been avoidable — me going into sepsis — if they were able to induce labor. The quicker they could get Tylee delivered, the better chance they had at me not going into sepsis. However, Tylee still had a heartbeat,” Anaya said.
She continued, “My husband and I are being told that ‘not only did we lose Tylee, but now you’re gonna go into sepsis and there’s nothing we can do about it other than watch you because of the abortion laws in Texas.'”
ABC News reported that according to her medical records, Anaya’s physician “initiated contact with the termination committee” — a committee of physicians who must approve any abortions at the hospital. However, the induction of labor in a medical emergency is not an induced abortion because the child is being delivered alive to save the mother’s life. Tylee was not going to be intentionally killed prior to delivery. At 16 weeks, Tylee would not have survived, but that does not make the induced delivery an induced abortion.
An induced abortion carries the goal of delivering a stillborn baby. An induced preterm delivery carries the goal of saving the mother’s life, and after 20 weeks, possibly saving the baby’s life as well.
These women did not receive proper care — but proper care would not have been an induced abortion.
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Other plaintiffs joining the case discovered during their pregnancies that their babies had severe health conditions that threatened their ability to survive outside the womb. D. Aylen’s baby had anencephaly, Kimberly Manzano’s baby had organs developing outside of his body, Amy Coronado’s baby had holoprosencephaly, and Danielle Mathisen’s baby had spinal and brain conditions. Some children with these conditions survive beyond birth.
These women could not get induced abortions in Texas because there was no threat to their own lives. Abortion is not necessary in the case of fetal diagnosis but is often sought out by parents after doctors tell them that their child will not survive or will not live a ‘normal’ life. Doctors are often wrong and sometimes misdiagnose babies. Regardless, no child deserves to be killed because a doctor said they might die or might experience suffering.
The Texas Supreme Court will hear arguments for Zurawski vs.The State of Texas on November 28. The hearing will be live-streamed on the Supreme Court’s YouTube channel.
