‘I Begged My Doctors’: Five Women Were Denied Abortions. Now, They’re Suing.

It took Amanda Zurawski and her husband more than a year to get pregnant. But, within a week, Zurawski lost her pregnancy, may have lost her chance at ever becoming pregnant again, and nearly lost her life—thanks to Texas’ numerous abortion bans, she says.

Last summer, when Zurawski was more than 17 weeks into her pregnancy and after she had just finished the invite list for her upcoming baby shower, Zurawski and her husband learned that she had developed a medical condition that made it impossible for her to deliver a healthy baby daughter, who she already had named Willow. Had Roe v. Wade not been overturned in June, Zurawski could have had an abortion to end the pregnancy.

Instead, a specialist at the hospital told Zurawski to stay within 15 minutes’ drive of the hospital, in case of a medical emergency, so Zurawski decided not to flee the state for an abortion. Within days, she developed a 103-degree fever and developed life-threatening sepsis. Finally, the hospital agreed that Zurawski’s life was so endangered that she could have an abortion. After the procedure, Zurawski still ended up in the ICU. 

Her uterus was scarred and one of her fallopian tubes is now permanently closed.

Now, Zurawski and four other women who were blocked from getting abortions in Texas filed a lawsuit suing the state on Monday, in what’s believed to be the first lawsuit filed by people denied abortions since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. These women are now suing the state to clarify when and how people can get abortions in medical emergencies. 

All five of the women had wanted to keep their pregnancies, but medical problems made that impossible, according to the lawsuit, which detailed Zurawski’s account. Though Zurawski stayed in Texas, the other four had to flee to states like Colorado and Washington for abortions.

On Tuesday, the women stood in front of the Texas state capitol and declared that Texaslawmakers had threatened their lives.

“I needed an abortion to protect my life and to protect the lives of my future babies that  I dream and hope I can still have some day,” Zurawski said, seemingly near tears. “The preventable harm inflicted on me will make it medically harder for me to get pregnant again.”

“The people in the building behind me have the power to fix this,” she added. “Yet they have done nothing. In fact, they’re currently trying to pass even more restrictive measures.”

If Texas politicians don’t think that any of these five women’s situations merited an exception to Texas’ abortion bans, the lawyers behind the case want politicians to say so.

“Doctors and hospitals are turning patients away, even those in medical emergencies. Patients are being denied necessary life-saving obstetrical care. Why? Because abortion is a crime in Texas, punishable by up to 99 years in prison,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the women. “No one should be forced to wait till they are at death’s door to receive health care.”

Two doctors, Damla Karsan and Judy Levison, are also suing Texas, and the lawsuit highlights how the abortion bans have left doctors terrified, both for their patients and themselves. “Medical professionals are being forced to forgo practicing their profession and fulfilling their ethical duties to patients in the face of catastrophic risks to their liberty and livelihood,” the lawsuit alleges. 

Two of the women involved in the lawsuit, Lauren Miller and Ashley Brandt, were pregnant with twins, but had to abort one of the fetuses due to medical issues. For weeks after Brandt’s abortion, her Texas-based doctor avoided recording any mention of the procedure. Instead, her OB-GYN’s records initially said that Brandt had been diagnosed with “vanishing twin syndrome”—even though Brandt had talked to her OB-GYN about leaving the state for the abortion, according to the lawsuit.

When another woman, Anna Zargarian, asked doctors at the emergency room for help ending her pregnancy, “the medical staff at the hospital were scared to give Anna any information about where to seek abortion care,” the lawsuit alleged. “Instead, one of the doctors typed a generic abortion finder resource into her cell phone and showed the webpage to Anna.”

“I begged my doctors to give me the care I needed. ‘Please just induce me while I’m still strong and healthy. There must be an exception in this situation,’” Zargarian said Tuesday. “Finally, one doctor told me, ‘You’re wasting your time trying to obtain help here at home.’”

Zargarian ended up booking a flight out of state, where she paid extra for a seat close to the bathroom in case of an emergency, according to the lawsuit. “I’ve never felt like my life mattered less than it did during this situation,” she said.

Zargarian started to cry as she described realizing that she was losing her pregnancy. “I didn’t even know a pain like that could exist until that moment.”

Another woman, Lauren Hall, said that her doctor urged her to travel out of state for an abortion and to tell no one what she was doing. The doctor refused to send a referral or even transfer her records, according to the lawsuit. Once Hall and her husband finally made it to Seattle for an abortion, she said that protesters outside the clinic called her a killer.

Now, Hall announced on Tuesday, she is once again pregnant. 

“We fear everything. While I was calm during my previous pregnancy, I now compulsively look up every ache and pain,” Hall said. “More people will suffer and lose their lives if a change is not made. I love Texas and it kills me that my own state does not seem to care if  I live or die.”