Five pregnant women who were denied an abortion despite serious threats to their lives have filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas in the US, marking a first. It is the first time that pregnant women have chosen to take legal action against the restrictive abortion policies, according to a New York Times story. The Center for Reproductive Rights has supported the case that has been filed.
The historic “Roe v. Wade” decision from 1973 was overturned by the US Supreme Court in June of last year
The historic “Roe v. Wade” decision from 1973 that established a woman’s right to an abortion was overturned by the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court in June of last year, which ruled that individual states can either legalize or ban the practice on their own.
Since that time, Texas, a predominantly Republican state, has outlawed abortions with just a few limited circumstances that a doctor decides on his own discretion. The women have requested that the court explicitly define the exclusions and the circumstances under which one may be given an abortion in the lawsuit. Two of the ladies who requested abortions had undeveloped fetuses, but despite rushing across state lines to find care, they were denied the procedure. One of the claimants, Amanda Zurawski, stated that the back-and-forth had seriously harmed her body. She experienced two episodes of sepsis, and scar tissue caused her fallopian tubes to permanently close.
“You don’t think you’re somebody who’s going to need an abortion, let alone an abortion to save my life. If anybody reads my story, I don’t care where they are on the political spectrum, very few people would agree there is anything pro-life about this,” Zurawski was quoted as saying by the publication.
Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, named as a defendant in the suit has been a staunch advocate of no abortion practices in the state. “We’re not going to allow left-wing bureaucrats in Washington to transform our hospitals and emergency rooms into walk-in abortion clinics,” he said last year when the court passed its decision.
The women demand clarity regarding the circumstances under which a doctor may approve a woman for an abortion
Following the filing of the lawsuit by the five women, Paxton’s office issued a statement in which it reiterated its stance: “Now that the Supreme Court has finally overturned Roe, I will do everything in my power to protect mothers, families, and unborn children, and to uphold the state laws duly enacted by the Texas Legislature.”
The women do not want to remove the state’s ban on abortion; rather, they merely demand clarity regarding the circumstances under which a doctor may approve a woman for an abortion when it is obvious that the pregnancy poses a risk to her health. Experts claim that the US Supreme Court’s decision to overrule Roe v. Wade is at odds with a global trend that has seen abortion laws loosened, particularly in countries where the Catholic Church still wields substantial influence, such as India, Ireland, Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia.