Woman in severe condition after denied abortion

A Texas law that bans all abortions – except in dire medical circumstances – is one of the strictest introduced since the right to the procedure was overturned. Critics say it is forcing many women, and their doctors, to choose between breaking the law and making the right decision for their health.

Amanda Zurawski and her husband Josh had recently bought their dream home. Located in one of the most sought-after areas of Austin, Texas, it had scenic views of a lake and a golf course. With their first child on the way, it was perfect for their growing family.

But their moving day last August was not at all what they had envisioned. Amanda had just been released from the hospital after her life was put at risk when she was denied an abortion.

“It felt like I was living in a dystopian world,” Amanda told the BBC. “In the United States, as a pregnant person, you should not be afraid of your life because of the laws.”

In the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, giving states the right to ban abortion, 13 states have passed near total bans. Texas is the largest, and one of the strictest, banning all abortions from the moment of conception, except in cases of a “life-threatening physical condition” or “a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function”. Breaking the law can carry a $100,000 (£78,000) fine and up to life in prison.

When Amanda learned she was having a daughter, she and her husband were overjoyed. But on the same day that she compiled the guest list for her baby shower, she was diagnosed with a condition that led to not only the loss of her child, but put her in the crosshairs of Texas’s abortion ban.

Doctors told her she had cervical insufficiency, which is a weakening of the cervical tissue that causes premature dilation, and that her unborn daughter would not survive. She and her husband were devastated.

“She was a baby that we desperately, desperately wanted,” she said.

A standard course of medical treatment for an unviable pregnancy at that stage of development is to terminate, and extract the foetus. Waiting to miscarry naturally can put the mother at risk for infection, which can prove fatal.

But doctors told her they couldn’t terminate her pregnancy, as under the state’s laws, it was a crime to perform an abortion when there was a foetal heartbeat, unless the mother’s life was threatened. Essentially, the message was that she was not sick enough yet to legally justify an abortion.

Three days later, Amanda developed a life-threatening infection and went into septic shock.

“My teeth were chattering uncontrollably, I couldn’t put together a sentence,” she said. “Imagine when you have the worst flu you’ve ever had in your entire life, it was that times one thousand; it was awful.”

At the hospital, they induced labour and she miscarried her baby, whom she named Willow. She was then immediately sent to the intensive care unit, where she spent the next several days. The sepsis had caused scarring on her uterus and fallopian tubes, which led to one tube being permanently blocked.

It may make conceiving even harder for her in the future.

 

Source: BBC